The Anne Arundel County Police Department will have a new police chief Saturday, an announcement that follows a tumultuous two weeks for the department. Last week, outgoing Police Chief Timothy Altomare announced his retirement just days after a Black male resident filed a lawsuit against three officers and the county, alleging that one of the officers had kneeled on his neck. That officer has since been suspended.

Deputy Police Chief William Lowry will step in as interim chief, effective August 1. Lowry’s resume includes roughly three decades with the Prince George’s County police department and security roles with Washington’s NFL team, the Miami Dolphins, and NASA. He served with the Anne Arundel County police force from 2013 to 2015 and returned to the department in 2019 under Altomare.

“I believe that Chief Lowry is uniquely qualified for the task before us,” said County Executive Steuart Pittman. “He worked closely with the Prince George’s County Citizens Complaint Oversight Panel in the early ’90s, and he grew up in a family that risked their lives for the cause of racial justice in the South.”

In a Black History Month Facebook video the department posted earlier this year, Lowry describes growing up in the Deep South in the 1950s and ’60s. His father was a recruiter for the AFL-CIO, Lowry says, and worked with a Black recruiter to bring more “African-Americans into the labor force.”

“Because I lived in a segregated community where African-Americans were not allowed, [he] would have to get into the trunk of my father’s car when he came to visit us,” Lowry says. “The courage, the passion that the gentleman displayed, his grace and his demeanor is something that stayed with me throughout my entire life. He was more concerned with the safety of my father and our family than his own personal safety.”

Pittman will conduct a search for a permanent police chief while Lowry serves on an interim basis, according to the press release.

Altomare maintains the lawsuit was not a precipitating factor in his departure, saying in a recent essay that he retired “because of the movement to strip police of their powers.”

“There is a movement in this nation and in this county to remove the teeth of the police. It is wrong and it will have grave and lasting effects that you will see and feel,” he writes. 

“The flock needs protecting, the sheepdogs do that when the wolf shows up. I am a sheepdog and will not apologize for it,” he adds. “If society takes the teeth from its sheepdogs, there is simply more sheep for the slaughter.” 

Altomare is one of at least three D.C.-area police chiefs to retire in the past several weeks, a list that also includes Arlington County Police Chief Murray “Jay” Farr and Prince George’s County Police Chief Hank Stawinski. 

In the lawsuit, Daniel Jarrells, 27, alleges that he was stopped last year “without any legitimate probable cause,” ordered from his car at gunpoint and eventually forced to the ground by county officers. In a video of the incident, one of the officers appears to kneel on Jarrells’ neck or upper back. In addition to suing for compensatory damages, the suit also asks the county to ban its officers from using neck restraints.

The suit comes as police departments throughout the nation are opting to ban or limit such restraints, a law-enforcement technique that has faced intense scrutiny in the two months since a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for several minutes.

Last week, the Anne Arundel County police department announced the suspension and investigation of detective Daniel Reynolds, the officer who allegedly placed his knee on Jarrells’ neck during his arrest. At a community forum on policing held July 22, Major Katie Goodwin said the department did not learn of the video till the lawsuit received media attention.

“It’s important to know this incident happened over a year ago—18 months ago, in fact—and it was never brought to the police department’s attention,” said Goodwin, who added that a complaint had not been filed with the department. 

Goodwin said the department must “continue to earn the trust” of the community it serves.

“As citizens of Anne Arundel County, you can be assured that we do not accept anything less than respect for all of the lives, including those that we arrest,” she said.

Pittman also announced today that Derek Matthews, special projects coordinator for the county executive, will become special assistant to the chief of the police department. In his new role, he will manage new department endeavors, such as widespread use of body cameras.

“Derek Matthews understands Anne Arundel County and he understands policing,” Pittman said in the press release. “Body-worn cameras are a major investment in transparency for this county, and our program must be done right. Derek will not only manage the program’s planning and implementation, but he will ensure that the voices of both police officers and community residents are heard in the process.”

Body-camera funding was a last-minute addition to the county fiscal year 2021 budget, a move Pittman said followed a torrent of more than 300 letters from community members, organized by a division of the local NAACP.