Baltimore MD December 20 2022

The Maryland State Police are tracking developments in five security guard-related shootings — all of which occurred since late October — according to licensing records obtained by The Baltimore Banner.

The records reveal for the first time the scope of a recent spate of shootings involving armed security guards in the Baltimore area and offer a window into how the state police monitor the incidents.

The details come as the string of shootings, four of them fatal, have spurred new questions about Maryland’s lack of regulations governing private armed security guards.

Included in the records are notes on four highly publicized security guards shootings, which took place at a Royal Farms in Southwest Baltimore, a CVS in Harbor East, a Giant supermarket in Prince George’s County and a bar in Highlandtown.

In the Royal Farms shooting, the state police note reveals that Kanisha Spence, who was later charged with second-degree murder, received a warning letter in February 2020 after the agency found she had omitted several arrests in her application despite being asked to list them.

The omitted arrests included assault charges stemming from incidents in 2010 and 2011. All of the charges appear to have been dropped, according to the records. A defense attorney who represented Spence in at least one of those cases did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ron Snyder, a spokesperson for the Maryland State Police, said that a trooper saw that Spence answered “no” to having ever been arrested on her application and similarly noticed that she had not been convicted of any of the charges.

“The trooper noted that the applicant did not answer truthfully and took corrective action, sending the applicant a warning letter, making her aware of the discrepancy in her application,” Snyder said.

The Maryland State Police is responsible for regulating security guards in the state, but the agency is not automatically notified of shootings involving private security guards.

Several of the notes provided to The Baltimore Banner appeared to have been recorded weeks after the shootings occurred. In the case of Keith Luckey, who fatally shot soccer coach Kevin Torres in Highlandtown on Nov. 7, a note was not submitted to the Maryland State Police system until Dec. 3, nearly a month later.

The licensing records also include new information on the shooting death of Azayn Antrobus, 23, who was killed in the early morning on Dec. 7 in Cockeysville. Last week, prosecutors charged Timothy Brice, 23, with first-degree murder in the death of Antrobus, alleging that the two shared a mutual sexual partner and got into a verbal dispute just before Brice shot Antrobus once, killing him.

Brice was also a licensed security guard who appears to have passed a licensing test and received his certification card less than a month before the shooting, according to the notes on Brice’s file maintained by the state police. It’s unclear from the notes if Brice was recertified or just recently applied for the license. An attorney representing Brice was not immediately available to answer questions about the incident on Monday.

Of the five shootings being monitored by the state police, all but two of the security guards involved have received emergency suspensions: the nonfatal CVS shooting that occurred in Harbor East, and the Giant supermarket shooting, in which the security guard, Willie Tate, was fatally shot.

The Baltimore Banner is not naming the security guard involved in the CVS shooting because she has not yet been charged with a crime.

thebaltimorebanner.com

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