A joint committee on police accountability in Rehoboth Beach and Lewes had questions for law enforcement officials about a May 19 “takeover” event in Rehoboth Beach.
The May 19 incident led to hundreds of young people turning out, multiple arrests, early business closures, and four men being charged with felonies, including conspiracy and incitement to riot. Those charges were later dropped.
At the police accountability meeting on Tuesday, committee members followed up on a discussion they began, then postponed, back in July. At that time, committee members said they had questions, but wanted to wait for the results of an independent investigation into how Rehoboth police officers responded.
That investigation was concluded and a report released in late July. That probe found no evidence that the law enforcement response was racially motivated and that officers, including those from Rehoboth Beach and other nearby departments acted appropriately.
At Tuesday’s meeting, committee members had a number of follow-up questions, mostly for Rehoboth Police Chief Keith Banks. One line of questioning concerned how law enforcement prepared for the event. One challenge, Banks said, is that “takeover” events are usually promoted on social media, and authorities may or may not find out about them in advance.
“I don't have someone in a small police department who just watches social media and looks at all that,” Banks explained. “So we kind of hear things and we'll start researching and then get online and start looking and try to engage.”
Lieutenant James Locklear of the Lewes Police Department echoed that.
“The problem with the takeover is these guys initially had a couple of hours maybe [to prepare],” he said. “It is advertised but it is not advertised to the police departments in the jurisdiction in which they're getting ready to have the takeover.”
Banks said that in the aftermath of the May 19 takeover, his department is being more proactive about engaging with the organizers of takeover-type events, something he believes was key in another event later in the summer fizzling out.
“They didn't simply engage in conversation back and forth, but we knew they got the message by reaching out to them from their social media posts back to us,” Banks said.
Committee members also had questions about the charges filed after the May 19 incident. Banks said that charging mass numbers of takeover participants with misdemeanors, like possession of alcohol, was a non-starter.
“The reality is we don't have that kind of law enforcement presence to be able to sit there and do that equally and fairly,” he said.
Banks also addressed felony charges his department filed against four men who allegedly organized the event. Those charges were later dropped by prosecutors. Banks had some criticism of the Attorney General’s office over how that process unfolded.
Banks stressed that he had no objections to the charges being dropped, however.
“Nobody here, professionals, want some young individuals to have felony records and things like that for jobs in the future,” he said. “But at the same time, we can't allow this to continue to happen.”
But, Banks was critical of how the charges were dropped. He said that prosecutors didn’t give him advance notice, for one thing. And, he added, he disagreed with how prosecutors characterized the decision to dismiss the charges.
“Their stance was that there was no basic justification for it or whatever. Well, if anybody reads the statute and it's in the report and all, then it meets the criteria,” Banks said. “They may not like it, but change the law. We've met the criteria, and that's why one judge signed off on it.”
Still, Banks was also eager to praise his relations with the Attorney General’s office overall, noting that during a later takeover event that never materialized, his office had a direct line to prosecutors, who were ready to come to Rehoboth Beach if they were needed.
“We had them involved,” Banks said. “As a matter of fact, we had them on the phone and throughout the night, giving them updates, and they were actually willing to come down if it started developing or whatever to work with us.”
