Accountability for Police Killing Anton Black

This law increases public access to information about police misconduct cases by allowing internal investigations and misconduct records of a police officer to be disclosable to the public.

This matters because it increases transparency in cases where bad officers have committed bad acts. Most importantly, this allows for victims of police violence, their families, and the public to hold agencies accountable for executing thorough investigations. It can also shine light on officers with a history of abuse which could prevent cases like the one of Anton Black, who was murdered by white officers in Greensboro, MD from ever occurring. One of those officers had a bad record of abusing Black people.

Like any 19-year-old college student, Anton Black had dreams. His were big ones.

He was a former champion athlete at North Caroline High School. As his father, Antone Black, says, he was one of the fastest boys in the state. His father always loved to see his son run.

Anton had his whole life ahead of him and he was open to all the possibilities, from enlisting in the military to his dreams of pursuing modeling and acting. Some of his dreams were just beginning to come true. Anton got to model at New York Fashion Week and even modeled for designers from California, Washington D.C., and New York. Once he finally landed a movie role, he practiced his lines over and over again with his Dad as a sounding board.

But Anton never did get to star in his first movie. He was killed before that could happen.

Over two years later, the family and the Coalition for Justice for Anton Black are still fighting for justice for Anton Black.

To talk more about this we will speak with Antone Black, the father of Anton Black, Richard Potter, an educator and president of the Talbot County Branch of the NAACP, and Deborah Jeon, legal director for the ACLU of Maryland, about the impact they hope their legal challenge will have as part of the work to reimagine policing in Maryland.

Sadly, in 2018, he had declared that Anton Black’s killing was “accidental,” despite striking similarities between his killing and that of George’s.

In fact, there are many similarities between the lives of George Floyd and Anton Black.

However, one verdict is not justice – it’s simply accountability. Over 5,000 people were killed by police in the U.S. since 2015, including George Floyd and Anton Black, who were killed by police in eerily, terrifyingly similar ways.

We talked to LaToya Holley, the sister of Anton Black, Dayvon Love, Director of Public Policy for Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle and Sonia Kumar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Maryland, about the Derek Chauvin verdict, the work being done to get justice for Anton Black and what we must do to reform policing the create a system that values and protects Black lives.

“The kids adored him,” said LaToya, Anton’s sister. “No matter how old or young they were. He would have been a great father.”

To add to the tragedy, when police murdered Anton he was an expectant father. Everyone described him as good with kids and a family boy. But he was killed before he could meet his daughter, Winter, who was born a few months later.

“She will never ever get to feel her father hold her or hug her or kiss her or try to make her feel better if she’s not having a good day,” said LaToya. “All of those opportunities have been stolen from his daughter.”

Anton Black would be 24 years old this year.

Racism rampant in policing and the institutions that prop it up, seeking to justify brutal, biased actions by officers, are what led to the tragic killing of Anton Black. The gravity of this situation cannot be overstated. A mother, father, sister, and daughter had to bury their loved one who had such a promising future. It’s time for people and institutions to be held accountable for brutal police actions and for this systemic racism to change. Anton Black’s life mattered.

Below you will find a timeline tracing the cascading dominos from the moment Anton was stopped by police to his killing, and all that happened after. You’ll get an in-depth look at how this killing happened, the advocacy his grieving family undertook in its aftermath, the creation of a coalition to support the family and their advocacy, the legal reforms spurred by this killing, and the lawsuits that are challenging those responsible for the killing and those trying to undermine police accountability in Maryland.