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Law Enforcement on Smith Island

or
It Is in Maryland, But It's Like Patrolling Another World

by John R. Somers, Jr.

Mr. Somers is a member of the Maryland State Police and a writer. He is the son of Board member John Somers who was also a member of the State Police and recently retired as Director of Civil Defense for Somerset County.

From the Summer 1993 issue of the Crisfield & Smith Island Newsletter

Time and Place

Situated practically in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, Smith Island belongs geographically to Somerset County and chronologically to the twentieth century, yet in some ways it is part of neither. Home to some 450 persons divided between three communities, the Island depends for sustenance on the same Bay that serves to isolate it from the rest of the world.

Although the secluded lifestyle strikes hundreds of visitors as quaint, the Islanders are not without some trappings of modern life such as air conditioning and television. One seldom sees a new car on the Island, however, because of the destructive salt water that often floods the roads. If they have a car on the Island, it is usually at least several years old; if they have a good one, it is kept in Crisfield, twelve miles across the Tangier Sound.

Never having seen fit to incorporate their community, as their cousins across the Virginia line on Tangier Island have done, the Smith Islanders have likewise never recognized the need for full-time local law enforcement. There are many reasons for this, but the strong influence of the church and the family relationships binding many of the residents served to make it unnecessary until relatively recently. Even now, law enforcement is done mostly on an as-needed basis, with both the State Police and Somerset County Sheriff's Department responding when called. Occasionally though, patrols are scheduled on the Island, sometimes with bizarre results.

The first time the Maryland State Police set foot on Smith Island, as far as can be determined, was in the winter of 1936. Concerned that the harshest winter in years was causing hardship on the Island, the new Superintendent, Major Enoch Barton, decided to send a trooper for the duration of the cold spell that had frozen most of the Bay solid.

It is hard to imagine a place needing a trooper less than Smith Island at that time. Industrious and self-reliant, the Islanders were used to being froze-up, and prepared in advance for each winter. They had no electricity for refrigeration, so meat and fish were preserved by salting, vegetables were dried or canned, and dried beans, the old stand-by, were laid up in great quantities. Wild geese and ducks visited the Island in profusion in those days and the local men, unable to work on the oyster dredge boats because of the ice, supplemented their family's diets through their skills with a shotgun. The meals may have been monotonous on occasion, but there was plenty. And, although 1936 is history to many of us, it must be remembered that it was just five years before World War II and well into the age of aviation. Thus, while the thick ice surrounding the Island had effectively eliminated conventional deliveries (one Coast Guard Cutter was crippled and another nearly sunk), food was delivered almost daily by airplanes that landed on the ice. A generous Cambridge cannery and a misdirected pilot tried to eliminate the landing altogether and shoved boxes of their food out of the plane while flying overhead, with spectacular results and no small hazard to the Islanders waiting on the ice below.

Nevertheless, the word somehow spread that near-starvation conditions existed on Smith and neighboring Tangier Islands. Major Garey, probably concerned by the reports he had received, and alert for ways to make a name for his fledgling Department, decided to station a trooper on the Island for the duration of the freeze.

The trooper selected, Sgt. Menasha Katz, was just the man for the job. An immigrant from Romania, he had been a member of the State Police since 1922, long before it was the State Police. In fact, as an independent organization, the Department was then little more than a year old, having been part of the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles Office until June, 1935. Sgt. Katz had served in various posts around the State (including aide to Governor Harry Nice) until his promotion, effective the same day the Maryland State Police was officially established.

When Katz drove Car 100 into Crisfield enroute to his assignment, it could be safely said that he had more than an average amount of influence in the State. For one thing, the Department didn't have one hundred cars or a hundred vehicles of any kind! At that time, there were only fifty-four members for the whole State, mostly assigned to motorcycle duty. Katz had talked whoever had charge of such things into issuing tags with #100 for both his patrol car and his motorcycle! Presumably, this was about the same time he had talked the Motor Vehicles Commissioner, E. Austin Baughman, out of his honorary driver's license number, also #100! And, actually, there are those who believe Katz engineered his assignment too, but after fifty-seven years, who really knows (or much cares)?

Katz on Ice

Sergeant Katz walked most of the way from Crisfield on the ice and strode ashore on Smith Island into another world! The Island is always secluded from the mainland, but in those colder winters, the frozen waters of the Chesapeake Bay and Tangier Sound made the expression "You can't get there from here" almost literally the truth. His actual responsibilities, given the zero crime rate and approximately the same number of automobiles, are unknown, but we can assume that they included helping with incoming deliveries of food and other supplies, and what we would now call Establishing a State Police Presence. The only official act any of the surviving Islanders can recall was his effort to keep the ice available for incoming deliveries. The Sergeant erected a sign at the shoreline, and with tongue in cheek (and uncharacteristic brevity), he played on his feline-sounding surname: Keep all Dogs off the Ice! Katz

Funeral Procession

Although perhaps difficult to believe, it seems that the presence of another trooper on the Island wasn't required for another thirty-seven years. In 1973, growing numbers of Islander requests for enforcement of motor vehicle laws prompted 1st Lt. E.D. McGee, Salisbury Barrack commander, to assign SGT John R. Somers, Sr. to the job. SGT Somers, himself a native of Smith Island and a seventeen-year veteran with the Agency, arrived on the Island to find (just as today) that everyone had been tipped off by CB radio and not a wheel was turning. Needless to say, his patrol of the 1.2 miles of county roads was uneventful. But then, after several hours, a delegation of Islanders presented him with an unanticipated dilemma a funeral was scheduled for mid-afternoon and many of the elderly folks would be unable to attend without the aid of their mostly-unregistered vehicles. They had enough respect for him not to drive them in his presence, but counted on him, as one of their own, to arrive at a fair solution. And he did! Exercising his vast authority under Article 88B (it must be in there somewhere), he simply suspended the motor vehicle laws for two hours. After the time expired, the cars disappeared until after his departure.

In recent years, police visits to the Island have been more frequent but still are not a daily event, and the radio warnings usually ensure that no illegal vehicles move and drivers are scrupulously careful. I recall standing in front of the church in Ewell one evening a few years ago, watching a practically-new car drive by slowly (slow is as fast as you can usually go on the narrow roads). Despite its obviously perfect condition, something seemed oddly out of place. And then it dawned on me five adults seated in a new car driving down the main street on Smith Island at eight miles per hour and all five of them were wearing seatbelts and shoulder harnesses!

Agenda

Troopers assigned to patrol Smith Island will tell you that it isn't as simple as some might think one has to know how to do it. First on the agenda is to find the patrol car (which is parked behind an Islanders house). Next is to drive it to the Fire Department to put air in the tires (which always seem to go flat between trips). Then, there is a succession of details to be handled: check in with the local minister, who is the semi-mayor; then on to one of the restaurants for absolutely the best seafood in the world; and lastly, figure out something to do before departure time.

DWI on the Island

TFCs Ronnie Howard and Charlie Horner are the troopers who handle most of the expeditions. Things usually happen when they work together, even on Smith Island. About three years ago, while on routine patrol, they attempted to stop a car that had a burned-out tail light. But the driver led them on a chase around the Island before he suddenly gave up and stopped. When they asked him "Why did you stop now?" he replied, "I just realized there was nowhere to go." As things developed, he had the dubious honor of becoming the first person ever arrested for DWI on Smith Island. And, the next time Howard and Horner returned, the same man set a new record becoming the first person arrested twice for DWI on Smith Island.

Chase!

The road to another First began on Memorial Day 1991, when the Acting Commander of the Princess Anne Detachment received a call concerning Malicious Destruction of a bicycle on Smith Island. Normally, this would not require an immediate response but, as the suspect and victim had already been involved in a number of increasingly severe altercations, he assigned himself the complaint. Besides, practically everybody else in the country was off for the holiday, he reasoned, and, if he had to work, it may as well be on Smith Island. He located the victim's bicycle in her front yard and quickly determined that nothing had been deliberately damaged it just hadn't been properly assembled in the first place. Since she obviously didn't know how to do it herself, he borrowed a neighbor's wrench and fixed it for her. And, having done this favor, he felt comfortable in asking to borrow the bike to do a little patrolling.

As he was peddling leisurely down the road, he met a motorcycle going the opposite direction. Sure enough, it had no license plate attached to the rear, so he quickly turned and initiated pursuit. Peddling furiously, the Sergeant reached pursuit speeds of almost twenty miles per hour down the eight foot wide roads. First one turn - then another - then the motorcycle turned down a lane between two houses, the chase vehicle still hot on his tail. Another right - the bicycle slid around the turn and rapidly gained speed, the wind threatening to blow the Sergeant's summer Stetson off his head. Ahead, the motorcycle operator pulled up in front of the Island's largest grocery store. In a cloud of dust and a shower of flying gravel, the bicycle skidded to a stop alongside and the Sergeant gasped, "License and registration." When the startled operator replied, "I don't have any," the winded policeman sighed "I didn't think so." Another one for the books the Agency's first bicycle pursuit?

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