Really Bad News for Criminals

On Monday, Southern Maryland law enforcement officers unveiled their newly established Southern Maryland Information Center (SMIC) in Hughesville.  SMIC houses a task force of criminal intelligence gatherers and analysts from each of the county sheriffs’ departments, the state troopers, the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center, and the Maryland National Guard Counter Drug Operation.

Together for the announcement in the SMECO Hughesville headquarters, were Maryland State Police Superintendent Colonel Terrence Sheridan, Calvert County Sheriff Mike Evans, Charles County Sheriff Rex Coffey, St. Mary’s County Sheriff Tim Cameron, Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center Director, Captain Charles Rapp, and Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative President Joseph Slater.  SMIC is made possible through SMECO’s donation of office space and furnishings.

Officials expect the center to make sharing important crime information quicker and easier across county and agency boundaries.  Officers on the street will use the information to better stop gang activity, drug crimes, and other area criminal activities.    

Public support is important to the center.  The officers urge people with information about criminal activity to phone SMIC investigators directly on the Center’s toll-free tip line at 1-888-713-7171, or email the tip to smic@smictf.com.  Identities can be kept confidential. 

“Sharing information and resources will help us quickly identify and disrupt crime trends and better protect the citizens we serve,” said Sheriff Coffey.  “This is a great advance in public safety and really bad news for criminals.”

Sheriff Coffey told The Bay Net that something akin to this concept has always been in effect, but it was neither formally organized nor as comprehensive as SMIC is now.  According to Sheriff Cameron, SMIC proved its worth by helping to solve a series of burglaries and a credit card fraud scheme before it was fully operational.

“I expect other cases to come to fruition here soon,” said Cameron. 

“It’ll be harder for things to fall through the cracks,” said Coffey. 

SMECO President Slater said that the company agreed to provide office space and furniture, phones phone service and other necessities to the members of the center without cost.  According to Coffey, the tri-county sheriffs had been talking about such a center for a long while; it only came to fruition because of the SMECO donation. 

Sheriff Evans says at the moment, SMIC is funded through the budgets of the county sheriffs’ departments.  In the future, however, he hopes the center will secure both outside grants and the financial support of each county government.