The Johns Hopkins University’s controversial private police force will finally have a noticeable presence on campus, a major milestone for an effort that has faced heated opposition since the idea was introduced about seven years ago.
The university will hire between 20 and 30 officers in 2025, according to Branville Bard, the university’s vice president for public safety and chief of police, ushering in formal patrols on campus for the first time.
New leadership officials joining this year include Shayne Buchwald-Nickoles, who formerly worked at the FBI in Baltimore, as deputy chief of investigations; and Rachel Jefferson, who came from the Bowie Police Department, as deputy chief of support services. Last summer, the police force brought on Monique Brown, a 24-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, to serve as deputy chief of operations and Robert Reed, a former commander in the Administrative and Technical Support Bureau at Towson University, as captain of the force.
They face some skeptical students and community members, and even some from the police’s own Accountability Board, set up to share community feedback with university leadership and give recommendations for department policies.
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Opponents of the police force have raised concerns about campus police potentially harming students and community members of color. Critics say it is unclear who the police force will actually be accountable to, and what guardrails will be in place to prevent an officer from using excessive force. There have already been complaints from students about Johns Hopkins’ security officers.
“All officers in the JHPD will be accountable to me,” Bard said in response to student complaints. “As the chief of police, I commit to continue our work with the community to shape the JHPD as a model, community-oriented, transparent, and constitutional public safety organization.”
At Accountability Board meetings, members often clash on the policy proposals of the police force and the role of the board itself.
“I’m not ever going to apologize for the way I feel about this,” Edward Kangethe, who serves as chair of the board, said at a meeting in December. “I have been in opposition to the JHPD as long as you have known me.” Kangethe said he was “still in opposition to it in practice,” but that he volunteered to serve on the board because “whether you are in support or oppose it, perspective is value.”
Board member Sonja Merchant Jones, a lifelong Baltimore resident whose grandparents were custodians at Johns Hopkins’ Homewood campus, often spars in meetings with Kangethe and others who aren’t convinced the force should exist.
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“It became increasingly aware to me and others that he [Kangethe] was not as impartial as he should’ve been,” said Merchant Jones, who lived across the street from the university in the 1950s and ’60s, in an interview. “You can still hold onto your values but still be open to hearing others, and he was opposed,” at times, to hearing members of the board.
The private police force has long been a target of community backlash.
In 2019, students organized a protest in Garland Hall in opposition to the plans to create a police force; in 2022, student protesters disrupted a meeting on the planned police force; and last year, a faculty committee called on the Baltimore City Council to hold a public hearing on the force and its jurisdictional boundaries. Even now, the police force’s Accountability Board meets online because members face threats and “fear for their physical safety,” according to a Hopkins spokesperson.
But the plans have seemingly withstood the backlash. The initial class of officers will focus on “engagement, not enforcement,” according to Bard, the chief of police.
“We’re committed to continuing to develop the department the right way, not necessarily the quickest or the most expedient way,” he said.
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Though she’s in favor of the police force, Merchant Jones acknowledged some of the shortcomings of the university’s community outreach.
“I don’t think Hopkins did everything that they could possibly do to put compassion on the table,” she said. “As much as I have admiration and support for Dr. Bard and what they’re trying to do, what would really make a difference would be to implement some of the suggestions from those who don’t support the board.”
A spokesperson for Johns Hopkins noted that the university held a public comment period for draft policies, as well as the publication of a disposition report detailing all community feedback received during the public comment period and how the comments were addressed within the final policies.
And, while new Accountability Board members were supposed to be nominated in November, the university still hasn’t provided the state legislature the list of names. Nominees must be approved by the legislature before they begin serving. Bard said they were usually announced in December and a spokesperson told The Banner the university would make its nominations “shortly.”
The board has also declined to meet in person recently, citing threats of violence they have received. Both the Baltimore Police Department and the FBI have notified the university about these threats, according to a university spokeswoman and multiple members of the board.
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“I think we need a different process as a board in 2025,” Merchant Jones said. “We know that the police force is going to exist, so we need to ask ourselves what we can do to make it the best one in the world. I’m not sure I know the answer, though.”
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