By Donald Gresham, Mihir Chaudhary and Ike Enenmoh
Boosted by backroom lobbying, then sidetracked by a summer of protest, the idea of allowing Johns Hopkins University to have its own private and armed police force has receded from the headlines.
But it never totally went away.
Drawing attention from the start, a bill in the state legislature in 2019 to authorize the creation of such a force prompted adamant community opposition. Adding to the outcry was the disclosure that, as the bill was being introduced, nine senior Hopkins officials contributed $16,000 on a single day to then-Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh’s campaign account.
The university continued to argue that it needed a police force amid rising crime near its campuses and, fueled by $581,000 in total lobbying costs, Hopkins got the measure passed in Annapolis in 2019.
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