Welcome to 2026. Let it bring peace and health to our county and our world.
The title of my December State of the County address was, “A Way Forward.” I said that the best thing we could do in these times was to restore trust in local government by demonstrating what effective government looks like and engaging residents in the process. I’m proud of the services that our county agencies delivered in 2025, in the investments that we made in our future, and the engagement of our residents.
In the final days of 2025, on Christmas Eve, our county appeared in national headlines, not for the great work we were doing, but because an ICE officer shot at a vehicle in Glen Burnie and hit the driver.
The press reported that the driver came to this country from Portugal with a visa that expired seventeen years ago. It happens often.
His name is Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martins and he lives in Northwest Baltimore, according to the Baltimore Banner. “We see him outside playing with his kids a lot,” according to a neighbor. She added that he “would sometimes come by the house to help fix things.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported that the van Mr. Sousa-Martins was driving attempted to run over the ICE agents, so they fired on it. They also said that there was a passenger in the van named Salomon Antonio Serrano-Esquivel. Both were taken to the hospital with injuries.
The Baltimore Banner reported three days later that an attorney who was a client of Serrano-Esquivel’s family landscaping business had a very different story from the one that the Department of Homeland Security had reported. The attorney says that Mr. Serrano-Esquivel was never in the van with Mr. Sousa-Martins, but was picked up by ICE earlier that morning in Southern Maryland and was handcuffed in an ICE vehicle that later got in an accident while chasing another vehicle. That appears to be the vehicle that Mr. Sousa-Martins was driving, and that, the attorney says, was why Mr. Serrano-Esquivel ended up in the hospital. A now-viral social media thread involving Mr. Sousa-Martins’ co-workers corroborates the attorney’s story.
That’s all I know, other than that the FBI will conduct an investigation into charges of assaulting the ICE officers, and that Anne Arundel County Police will conduct an investigation of the shooting.
Here is the official statement that I offered to the press.
“This is exactly the kind of incident that I and my peers across the country have dreaded. We have federal law-enforcement operating in our jurisdictions without the traditional notification of local police and often without identification. It is a recipe for violence, and that is what we experienced in our county today. . We do not know the facts of the case yet, but will be investigating it as we do all shootings in our county. We pray for a fast recovery for the injured.”
That’s all I’ll say about the case, other than acknowledging what has been publicly reported, as I have done above.
But I will add some context.
The relationships that exist between local and federal law enforcement are built on years of trust and respect. They work together every day to enforce laws that federal, state, and local legislative bodies pass. They hold lawbreakers accountable and they make life safer for the rest of us.
Officer-involved shootings are always investigated. When it’s a county officer-involved shooting, state law requires that the investigation be done by the Office of the Attorney General. That is not the case here. Anne Arundel County Police will conduct the investigation of this shooting, and our Anne Arundel County Office of the State’s Attorney will determine whether the evidence warrants a prosecution. That’s how it always works, and I have no doubt that this investigation will be done with professionalism and integrity.
If Mr. Sousa-Martins or Mr. Serrano-Esquivel or both believe that their rights have been violated, they can file a case - if they can secure legal representation. As a firm believer in the last three words of our Pledge of Allegiance, justice for all, I hope that both are able to secure representation.
The Department of Homeland Security’s response to a question from the Baltimore Banner about when and where Mr. Serrano-Esquivel was taken into custody offered no additional information, but instead blamed “politicians, the news media, activists, and violent agitators” for an “increase in assaults against ICE officers.”
I’m probably in that category of politicians being blamed, but I’ve never said a negative word about ICE officers. In fact, I was quite sympathetic to them when they were complaining in 2019 about the way their bosses in Washington shut down the ICE detention center in our county. I had chosen to keep it open after meeting with detainees who feared transfer to less humane locations, and was even willing to use revenue from our ICE contract to fund the detainee legal services that would make the system more efficient.
Like many, I am frustrated that Congress has failed for decades to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would more effectively secure our borders, document undocumented immigrants (as Ronald Reagan did), and reflect our nation’s economic and humanitarian interests.
But that’s not relevant here. All that really matters in this case is that all government employees, including myself, adhere to the law, learn the facts, and uncover the truth. It’s what our Police Department does, and it’s what they have come to expect from the men and women who they proudly refer to as their “federal partners.”
Let’s maintain that tradition in 2026. It’s our only way forward. The only reason I failed to mention it in the “Way Forward” State of the County address last month is that it shouldn’t have to be said.
Until next week…