Salisbury Police Department (Maryland)
The Salisbury Police Department (SPD) is a nationally accredited full-service agency servicing a population of 23,743 persons within of the municipality of Salisbury, in the U.S. state of Maryland. SPD became accredited on April 26, 1987, becoming the 45th agency accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. In 2011, the Salisbury Police Department partnered with the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore to create two funds. The first is a College Scholarship program to send a future Salisbury Police Officer to Wor-Wic Community College. The second is a fund to re -establish the Mounted Unit and to assist in the establishment of a K-9 Unit. Organization. The Chief of Police is Barbara Duncan. She is the department's tenth chief and the first female. The department is divided into three divisions: Camren Colon incident. On May 26, 2020, one day after the murder of George Floyd, an incident occurred in which an officer from the Department put his hand on the neck of 18-year-old Camren Colon, who was being detained for disorderly conduct. In response to bodycam video of the incident, Police Chief Barbara Duncan said "At no time ... was my officer attempting to execute a neck restraint, a chokehold, or restrict the airflow of Mr. Colon." Lawyers representing the Colon family later disagreed, with one stating that the maneuver shown in bodycam video was "absolutely" a neck restraint. The use of neck restraints is prohibited by the Department's use of force policy.