(BALTIMORE – September 14, 2026) — Jamal Turner, Chair of the Baltimore City Police Accountability Board (PAB), and Aaron Maybin, former Chair of Baltimore City’s Civilian Review Board (CRB), issued the following joint statement regarding Councilman John Bullock becoming Chair of the Baltimore City Council’s Public Safety Committee and Councilman Mark Conway’s removal from that leadership position:
For Baltimore’s police-accountability community, this change is worth celebrating.
We congratulate Councilman John Bullock on becoming Chair of the Public Safety Committee and recognize his longstanding record of leadership, integrity, and service to Baltimore. His appointment gives Baltimore an opportunity to turn the page on a period of Public Safety Committee leadership that too often failed to meaningfully engage the community and civilian-accountability leaders most affected by its decisions.
That failure had consequences.
During Baltimore’s transition to local control of the Baltimore Police Department, a Local Control Advisory Board was established specifically to help inform the process. Community input was still being gathered, discussions were continuing, and significant questions — including the future of the Civilian Review Board — remained unresolved.
Rather than allowing that process to be completed, Councilman Mark Conway moved prematurely to advance legislation. He did so without ensuring that the leadership involved in the local-control process had completed its work and without adequately protecting the CRB in the legislation.
The result was devastating for civilian oversight: Baltimore’s Civilian Review Board was dissolved.
Only as the legislation moved toward passage did the CRB’s fate receive the attention it should have from the beginning. Councilman Conway later maintained that eliminating the CRB was not his intention.
But leadership must be judged by more than stated intentions. It must also be judged by preparation, transparency, judgment, consultation, and results. On those measures, Baltimore’s civilian-accountability community paid the price for his failure.
Independent investigatory powers were central to the CRB’s ability to provide meaningful civilian oversight. Before the Board was dissolved, there were repeated efforts to transfer those powers to the Police Accountability Board so that independent investigations would not be lost during Baltimore’s transition to local control.
Those efforts required strong, sustained leadership from the Public Safety Committee, but Chair Conway did not push forcefully enough to secure the transfer. As a result, Baltimore lost not only the CRB itself but also an important opportunity to preserve independent investigatory authority within a stronger, citywide accountability structure.
JAMAL TURNER
Chair, Baltimore City Police Accountability Board
“Today is a good day for Baltimore’s accountability community. I congratulate Councilman John Bullock and look forward to working with him as Chair of the Public Safety Committee.
“Councilman Bullock has built a legacy of leadership and integrity, and I believe his appointment gives us an opportunity to fundamentally reset the relationship between the Public Safety Committee, civilian oversight and Baltimore’s communities.
“We should also be clear about why that reset is necessary. Mark Conway’s handling of police-accountability legislation caused real harm. The dissolution of the Civilian Review Board was not some minor legislative oversight. Baltimore lost a civilian-accountability institution that had served this city for decades.
“When local-control legislation was being developed, there was already a process underway to solicit input and work through consequential policy questions. Instead of respecting that process and ensuring that the CRB was protected before legislation moved forward, Conway rushed ahead. Then, when the consequences became apparent, we heard that eliminating the CRB was never the intention.
“That is not good enough.
“You cannot champion legislation, fail to account for its consequences and then separate yourself from those consequences when they become politically inconvenient. Accountability has to apply to elected officials too.
“From my perspective, Conway’s approach too often appeared more interested in controlling the narrative, chasing headlines and positioning himself politically than doing the difficult work of listening to the people who actually understood Baltimore’s civilian-accountability system.
“Baltimore deserves better than leadership consumed by political spectacle, conspiracy-driven distractions and the spotlight. Public safety is too important. Police accountability is too important. And the voices of Baltimore residents are too important.
“That is why I welcome Chairman Bullock. I believe his record of integrity gives us an opportunity to replace political theater with substance and rebuild a relationship where community input is actually valued before decisions are made — not after the damage is done.”
AARON MAYBIN
Former Chair, Baltimore City Civilian Review Board
“The Civilian Review Board was not some abstract provision buried somewhere in the City Code. It was the oldest police oversight board in the city, made up of Baltimore residents who gave their time and energy to ensuring that their neighbors had an independent civilian voice and community representation when confronting allegations of police misconduct.
“Its dissolution represented the loss of the only independent police-accountability board in the city, an institution through which generations of Baltimore residents had sought accountability and a voice in a reimagining of policing.
“When legislation threatens an institution like that, elected leaders have an obligation to know exactly what they are doing before they act and to have a plan in place to preserve our valuable mechanisms of community power in the process.
“The CRB deserved more than an afterthought. Checks and balances were necessary during this transition to preserve independent oversight. The community deserved transparency. And the people serving on the Board deserved to be included before decisions affecting the very existence of civilian oversight were made.
“Instead, Conway moved forward prematurely, chasing political capital and news headlines to serve his own agenda, and Baltimore City lost the CRB. That is not the type of leadership we need — someone who would sacrifice community voice and power in order to raise his own political profile.
“That history cannot be rewritten simply by saying afterward that the outcome was ‘unintended.’ The damage was real, and those of us who served on the CRB, along with the citizens we served in the community, lived through the consequences of his actions.
“That is why this leadership change matters. Councilman John Bullock brings an opportunity for a different approach — one rooted in integrity, serious engagement and respect for the communities affected by public-safety policy.
“He has the chance to model leadership that respects community expertise, values transparency and collaboration, engages accountability institutions early and understands that reform should strengthen the public’s voice, not inadvertently silence it.
“We congratulate him and look forward to seeing that leadership in action.”
TURNING THE PAGE
This is not simply a change in committee assignments. It is an opportunity for Baltimore to close one chapter and begin another.
The Public Safety Committee should never be a stage for personal political ambitions. It should be one of the places where Baltimore conducts its most serious work — reducing violence, strengthening public safety, improving policing, protecting constitutional rights, and ensuring meaningful civilian accountability.
We celebrate Chairman John Bullock because we believe this transition creates an opportunity to restore seriousness, integrity, collaboration, and community engagement to that work.
We also believe elected officials should be held accountable for their records. The dissolution of the Civilian Review Board will remain part of Councilman Conway’s record on police accountability. Baltimore should learn from it, not sanitize it.
We welcome Chairman Bullock, honor his legacy of leadership and integrity, and look forward to a Public Safety Committee where community voices are not treated as an inconvenience, accountability is more than a talking point, and getting the policy right matters more than getting the headline.
Jamal Turner
Chair
Baltimore City Police Accountability Board
Aaron Maybin
Former Chair
Baltimore City Civilian Review Board
