Commentary
Ocean City Today June 17, 2022
Page 53
Assessing blame in deputy’s death There’s plenty of blame to go around in the tragic death of Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office Deputy First Class Glenn Hilliard, a family man with a wife and three children, who was shot and killed Sunday in the line of duty. Charged with his murder is Austin Davidson, 20, the Delmar man who led the 16-year law enforcement veteran on a brief chase before turning on him and opening fire, according to police reports. What infuriates many law enforcement professionals is that Davidson, who was being sought on multiple warrants, was even out on the streets after being given a suspended sentence and probation in 2019 for his armed robbery of a fastfood restaurant in Baltimore. Obviously, had he been in jail or prison, none of this would have happened, and a man with so much life ahead of him would have returned home to his family at the end of the day. The problem is that’s just one contributing factor. Bear in mind Davidson was wanted in four jurisdictions, including Worcester County for failing to appear in court on other charges. Baltimore wasn’t the only jurisdiction where he could have been locked up. There were other opportunities to get him off the streets if only for a few months. This doesn’t mean the judicial system is broken. It’s that judges can only guess what someone is capable of doing based on that person’s past actions and circumstances. As circumstances go, armed robbery is an extremely serious one, and, yes, Davidson should have been sent to prison for it. But even then, knowing what we do now, we can envision a scenario in which Davidson did do time for robbery, only to emerge from prison and kill someone else. We just can’t know these things. In fact, all we know for sure is that Deputy Hillard had his life taken away from him, and his family lost a husband and father. We can only imagine their sorrow and say it’s a sad, sad day for all of us, including the people who could have put his assailant away but for reasons known only to them, did not.
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EDITOR ............................................ Stewart Dobson MANAGING EDITOR ................................ Lisa Capitelli STAFF WRITERS .................................... Greg Wehner, ..........................................Jack Chavez, Mallory Panuska ACCOUNT MANAGERS.......... Mary Cooper, Vicki Shrier ..............................................................Amanda Shick CLASSIFIEDS/LEGALS MANAGER .... Nancy MacCubbin SENIOR DESIGNER ................................ Susan Parks GRAPHIC ARTIST .................................... Kelly Brown PUBLISHER........................................ Christine Brown ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT ...................... Gini Tufts Ocean City Today is published weekly by FLAG Publications, Inc. 11934 Ocean Gateway, Suite 6, Ocean City, Md. 21842 Ocean City Today is available by subscription at $150 a year. Visit us on the Web at www.oceancitytoday.com. Copyright 2022
PUBLIC EYE
What’s in a name?
What’s in a name? A lot, apparently, considering all the name changing that’s taking place among organizations, sports teams, institutions and, of course, people. I even considered changing mine a while back when I thought I was important but was advised that “Mr. Big” had already been taken by a television character to connote something significantly different than what I wanted to convey. Besides, few people are as By important as they think they Stewart are, as I came to understand Dobson some years ago when I came home after a day of making what I thought were command decisions only to be humbled by nature itself. That would be via a bird that dropped everything it had smack in the middle of my glass as I walked the yard with a tumbler of not-cheap Scotch in my hand. If that doesn’t remind you of your place in the universe, nothing will. This particular bird didn’t pause to think, “Hmmm, is that the always serviceable Johnnie Walker Red at $25 or the exceptionally well-crafted Johnnie Walker Blue at $199.99?” No, it did not. It just let go and by virtue of a conspiracy of gravity, wind speed, direction and possibly the rotation of Earth itself, its payload followed a flight path directly — and I mean directly — into the dead center of my glass.
One kerplunk and it’s “goodbye not-cheap scotch and hello you wee blooter.” Which means pretty much what it sounds like. Anyway, no amount of name changing alters who you are, although who you are sometimes necessitates a name change. I read this week, for instance, that the Maryland Firemen’s Association is considering changing its name to the Maryland Firefighter’s Association to recognize the association’s growing number of women firefighters — and fire chiefs, for that matter. That makes sense to me because it reflects real circumstances. On the other hand, take the Washington Commanders (please). They aren’t commanding much of anything these days, so a truth-in-naming convention would suggest their name could be the Washington Pvts. Or Privates, if you really think you can get away with it. The George Washington Colonials also are on the way to changing their nickname to something that doesn’t suggest a land grab by a bunch of foreign imperialists, while Five Guys has been listed by one moniker monitor as a candidate for change because of gender bias (Five Persons? Five Individuals? Five Theys?). I get it, I really do, but I also know that words are just assemblies of letters to which we assign attributes, meanings and connotations that change over time in good and bad ways according to current thinking and frequency of use. It’s like when that bird did his number in my drink. It’s funny as all get-out now, but it was completely unacceptable at the time.
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