investigativevoice.com

By Stephen Janis

Sitting at a table in a Chick-Fil-A on Joppa Road in Baltimore County Tuesday evening, Baltimore City Public Schools Police Corporal Clyde Boatwright pauses before he speaks.

Staring out the window, the officer’s gaze is distant, removed; his thoughts seem to be elsewhere.

“Every time I see a police car go by,” he says, "I think I want to be in it, I want to make sure the officer is okay.”

"They take away my uniform and they took me away from my kids.

“My life is a living hell.”

The veteran school police officer has been suspended since he confronted angry suspected gang members in the Carver High School gym last November. Several alleged Crips threatened one of Boatwright's players, trying to escalate a confrontation that started outside the gym.

The incident brought to light that Boatwright did not have the proper paperwork to hold a second job, a fellow coach told Investigative Voice two weeks ago. Now Boatwright could be fired.

“He was a hero,” said volunteer track coach William Pridgen, who was perplexed that Boatwright was facing termination.

RISKY TO SPEAK OUT

Boatwright has decided to speak out and discuss -–  not details of the case itself, which he is forbidden to -– but what it’s like for a police officer to face the end of his career for doing what he believes is his duty as both a cop, and a man.

“This is not an attack on any person; I just want the people know I want to go back to my job protecting the people of Baltimore, and I can’t.”

“I want them to know what this process has done to me and my family.”

Technically the city forbids police officers from speaking to the media, period. But Boatwright said he is not talking in his capacity as an officer, but simply as a human being, trying to let people know what it’s like to live in fear of a internal disciplinary system that is unfair.

In short, Boatwright is at wit’s end.

“I don’t know what else to do,” he said. “How do I explain to my children why I'm on the Internet at night looking for a job."

“It’s hard for people to understand what this does to your kids," he said.

“The stress, the fear of the unknown.”

It’s a risky gambit for any police officer to speak out, let alone Boatwright, who is facing his second potentially career-ending saga in less than a decade.

FIRED AFTER MISTAKEN ARREST

The former city sheriff was fired in 2003 for his involvement in the mistaken arrest of a construction worker at Lexington Market, a man whom he and several other officers mistook for a bank robber.

In the commotion one of Boatwright’s colleagues twice fired a stun gun at Rolando Sanchez, 26, the alleged robber, causing several injuries including torn neck ligaments. But it was Boatwright and another colleague, Sherriff Anthony Spence – also now a city school cop – who bore the brunt of the discipline.

They were fired; the officer who stunned Sanchez received only a single-day suspension. 

That’s why Boatwright said he has to share his story now, to pull back the curtain of a disciplinary system that is often shrouded in mystery and sullied by internal politics.

“The last thing I want to do is make my police department look bad,” he said.

“But people need to know what goes on.”

CONFRONTED ALLEGED GANG MEMBERS

The facts of the gym incident, as recounted by Coach Pridgen, are puzzling in light of what has happened since.

The alleged gang members entered the gym, hands in waistbands, looking for trouble, Pridgen said.

Pridgen, a volunteer coach, was able to chase away some of the teens after telling them he was a retired corrections officer.

But at least several remained.

As they approached the basketball player in the gym, Pridgen said Boatwright informed the teens he was a school police officer.

“You have to get your hands out of your waists,” Pridgen recalled Boatwright saying. After Boatwright showed the teens his badge and stood his ground, the potential assailants ran out of the gym.

“They came in deep,” Pridgen said. “But he stood up.”

The paperwork lapse is now under investigation. Boatwright was on medical leave for an ankle injury when he the incident occurred, further complicating his case. But he still feels like he did the best he could.

“I’ve always tried to do the right thing, it’s not always the most popular, but it’s the right thing.”

'I WILL ALWAYS PROTECT MY KIDS'

In that category Boatwright places his decision to return to his alma mater, Carver, where he was a basketball standout in the mid '90s, as a coach. He uses the small stipend he earns to buy equipment, trips to basketball camps, and even a laptop for one of his former players who was headed to college.

In that category as well Boatwright places his efforts to stand up for his players.

“I will always protect my kids, always,” he said. 

He too thinks that he handled the aftermath of the incident with Sanchez the right way. Breaking bread with him, apologizing, visiting him in the hospital, actions that prompted Sanchez to write a letter of recommendation on Boatwright's behalf to the school police when he applied for the job in 2004.

“In our line of work people get hurt,” Boatwright said. “It’s what we do after the fact as officers that define who we are.”

Most importantly he views his fight to bring school police under the umbrella of the Fraternal Order of Police lodge in Annapolis last year, a fight he and other officers won.

And it was in that capacity, as man who fights for the rights of fellow officers, that Boatwright believes started his latest round of problems.

Last summer a rookie officer got into trouble for reasons that Boatwright said he cannot discuss. The officer denied the allegations against him, but was fired because school officials said he was still in his probationary period and thus most entitled to an administrative trial board hearing.

Boatwright fought back, urging union officials to file a grievance. The case it still on appeal.

THE PRESSURE GETS WORSE

Boatwright believes his involvement in the officer's case made him a target. And after the story appeared in Investigative Voice about his encounter with the suspected gang members, the pressure has gotten worse.

Since then, his fiancée – who works as a civilian in the school police administration – has faced a termination hearing for a dispute over her use of medical leave. He has been written up for stepping outside of school headquarters to make a personal phone call. He also was kicked out of the communications department at School headquarters for inquiring about the health of an officer in an accident.

School officials have declined to discuss Boatwright’s case. Last week school communications director Michael Sarbanes said he couldn’t comment on personnel issues, all the while intimating that there is a side of the story school officials would like to share, but can’t.

“There are areas – such as personnel issues – we can’t comment on.”

But it’s hard for Boatwright to understand what he did wrong to merit charges that may lead to termination, charges that are not uncommon for school police officers.

“That’s how they keep people under control.”

Still, Boatwright said that even though he has born the most severe form of administrative punishment once, and may again find himself out of job, he has no regrets about being in the gym in November.

“I would not change a thing.”

“If you’re going to fire me for protecting my kids,” he said, pausing, “then fire me 10 times because I’d do it again.”

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