PART TWO WHEN COPS DRIVE DRUNK:
WILD MOOSES OF MECHANICSVILLE
AND A STOLEN RAM
BY KEN ROSSIGNOL
THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY
News and Commentary on Cops and Criminals
When police officers in Maryland get jammed up, sometimes it takes a while for prosecutors and Sheriffs to figure out how to unjam the mess their free-wheeling, hard-drinking, privileged flatfeet created. The challenge for the responsible authorities, such as Charles County Sheriff Troy Berry, is to hold accountable those in his agency who violate the rules of conduct either on duty or off duty in regards to criminal conduct while threading the needle of complex laws protecting the rights of law officers. The challenge for prosecutors, such as Prince George’s State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy and St. Mary’s State’s Attorney Jaymi Sterling, is to bring about accountability for law officers who flagrantly violate the law and to protect the public.
In the case of Charles County Sheriff Sgt. Robert Ryan Smith, Sheriff Berry, has shirked his duty to the public by keeping this bozo employed as a law officer and diminishes the great majority of officers who work hard to serve and protect the public. The dismissal of a top commander after he allegedly went behind a counter in an establishment and urinated on food shows Sheriff Berry acts when forced to do so when events become public. In the case of Sgt. Robert Ryan Smith, Sheriff Berry needs to get his head out of a deep dark place and take action to can this bozo.
Sgt. Smith’s drunken adventure in Prince George’s County in 2018, when he was in a fight, was stabbed, and pulled out his gun, was explained to Charles County residents with this simple press release that did not name Smith:
PGPD Investigating the Stabbing of an Off-Duty Charles County Sheriff’s Officer
On the evening of December 16, 2018, the Charles County Sheriff’s Office was notified by Prince George’s County Police that an off-duty CCSO officer was stabbed in the abdomen during an altercation with a male suspect inside a tavern in Fort Washington. The officer, a six-year veteran, was transported to an area hospital and is in stable condition. The Sheriff’s Office continues to work closely with the PGPD. In addition, and in accordance with agency policy, the CCSO Office of Professional Responsibility has initiated an administrative investigation. The suspect, Christopher DeWitt, was arrested and charged with first-degree assault, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment. SEE THIS NBC4 STORY for the details of a barfight apparently started by the obnoxious barfly Robert Ryan Smith.
In December of 2018, Christopher Dewitt says he was having a drink inside Sunnybrook Tavern in Fort Washington, Maryland, when he was approached by someone he didn’t know. Dewitt said the man threw food in front of him at the bar and called him a racial slur.
“I was like, ‘Who are you talking to?’ like, ‘I’m talking to you.’ So, we got in a physical altercation,” Dewitt said.
The man who approached Dewitt was off-duty Charles County Deputy Robert Smith, according to an arrest report obtained by News4.
This story is the rest of the story, at least for now, about the conviction of Charles County Sheriff Sgt. Robert Ryan Smith in St. Mary’s District Court on June 25, 2024, for driving while intoxicated.
NO RAM FOR BANAGAN WHERE HE LEFT IT AT MOOSE LODGE HITCHING POST
What really happened is best told through the report of St. Mary’s Deputy Elijsha Munn. In Deputy Munn’s official document affidavit for an arrest summons, he reveals that it was on December 3, 2023, in the heart of the drinking, driving, drugging, and dying season, that Deputy Munn was called to the Moose Lodge located on Mechanicsville Road for the report of a stolen truck. Deputy Munn stated that he met with the owner of the truck, Connor Raye Banagan, 26, of Clements, who alighted from his evening at the Mechanicsville Moose Bar And Lounge, an establishment with a well-deserved reputation as being a hellhole bar masquerading as a charitable and fraternal organization, much as the Fraternal Order of Police bars. The FOP bar in PG County has been a hellhole bar and even a scene of violent rape. The St. Mary’s FOP sold their bar in Great Mills and now meets in the Moose Lodge in Hollywood. There have likely been more drunk cops leaving the FOP bar at FOP Lodge #7 in Great Mills than Carter has liver pills.
Banagan told Deputy Munn that he had left his Ram in the Moose parking lot. The missing Ram Dodge pickup, with Maryland tag number 8FM9876, was left in the far left corner of the parking lot. Perhaps because both Rams and Mooses have horns, someone else might have confused the horned power pickups and picked the wrong one. A review of a surveillance video showed where it had been parked. In about the same area, Deputy Munn reports that the remaining pickup was a red 2017 Ford -F-150 bearing Maryland tag 8EL7510. Banagan told the deputy that he didn’t know who had rustled his Dodge Ram pickup truck from the Moose Lodge Coral, and he daggone sure didn’t give anyone permission to go galavanting in his ride. Deputy Munn then wrote in his statement of charges for the arrest of a person accused of the theft of the red Ford pickup that was registered to Sgt. Robert Ryan Smith.
Sleuth Munn tracked down the missing Ram to the hideout of Robert Ryan Smith on Serenity Lane.
After all, the keys were in the ignition, supposedly, and a mind-numbingly drunk off-duty police sergeant from Charles County really isn’t a new thing in Maryland.
HOLY MOLY BATMAN, SMITH OWNED A FORD, NOT A RAM!
The inebriated Sgt. Robert Ryan Smith must have believed he was in the correct horned pickup. Smith thought he owned a 2019 Dodge Ram while he left behind his Ford F-150. What is amazing is that Sgt. Smith was able to get home if he couldn’t figure out which pickup was his own.
Just call Charles County Detective Andrew Bringley, the next one in line for an internal investigation…
But Sgt. Smith had a passenger who could act as a guide. His passenger is quite good at detecting such things as pointing to the most direct path between the Moose Club bar and his own home, likely due to many such trips each week.
After all, both officers of the Charles County Sheriff’s Department went through extensive training learning how to detect intoxicated drivers on the highway. Thus, it was easy for them to apply their knowledge and drive in a single lane, not stray over the fog line, keep their headlights dim, and refrain from speeding or throwing beer cans at other vehicles.
There are no crash records that Sgt. Robert Ryan Smith ran any citizens off the road while he cruised from the boozer-filled Moose Hall to Detective Andrew Bringley’s home on William Drive in Golden Beach. With a young child of his own, one might wonder how Detective Bringley might have felt had he guided Detective Smith head-on into another vehicle, as happened two years ago when road-rager Alexsander Ivanchev snuffed out the lives of two young people.
The first stop in the stolen Ram from Mechanicsville Moose Lodge was Detective Andrew Bringley’s home in Golden Beach. It took two flatfoots to purloin a Ram. Smith was behind the wheel, and Bringley was the navigator. Nice work, boys.
St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Deputy Munn then checked the registration for Sgt. Robert Ryan Smith’s vehicle and proceeded to the home address of Smith at 30555 Serenity Lane in Charlotte Hall, Md. In his arrest application for charges, Deputy Munn says: “I located the Dodge Ram in the driveway. I interviewed the defendant about the victim’s vehicle being in his driveway, at which time he admitted to it not being his vehicle. The defendant confirmed that he was at the Moose Lodge earlier in the night and went and dropped his friend, witness Andrew Bringley, off at his house before returning to his residence where the truck was parked. The witness, Andrew Bringley, confirmed that the defendant was driving the victim’s vehicle, and he rode as the passenger to his home.”
The path taken by Sgt. Robert Ryan Smith in the stolen truck from Bringley’s house to his own home.
Deputy Munn ended his statement with: “While speaking with the defendant, the odor of an alcoholic beverage could be smelled on his breath, he had slurred and lethargic speech and red glassy eyes, which led me to believe he was under the influence of alcohol.”
Remarkably, Deputy Munn failed to mention if he had administered a portable breath test or transported Smith to a medical facility to take a blood draw. It could be a good old lack of following proper procedures to protect a fellow law officer or simply a lack of training from the Good Old Boys Keystone Cops of the St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department—take your pick.
Deputy Munn then charged Smith with theft under $100,000, unlawful removal of a motor vehicle, and unlawful taking of a motor vehicle.
The charging document filed with the District Court of Maryland was signed and dated by Deputy Munn on June 11, 2024 – nearly six months after Smith stole the truck from the Moose Lodge.
When the case came to trial on July 25, 2024, the charges, which were never posted on Maryland Judiciary Case Search, were mysteriously dropped and the charge which Smith pleaded guilty to of DWI appeared, leaving Smith to go off to the Slammer in Anne Arundel County for four days.
WHY SIX MONTHS TO DETERMINE HOW TO CHARGE A FELLOW COP FOR THE CRIME OF THEFT OF A VEHICLE?
The real story is that which took place in the Sheriff’s headquarters in the Walled City of Leonardtown.
Perhaps the public needs cameras that record video and audio placed in each room and space of the Sheriff’s headquarters and sent out on a live feed to inform the public of the negotiations, criminal conduct, and finagling that take place amid the spending of tax dollars and corruption of the law.
THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY has learned that prosecutors told the Sheriff’s Department to charge Smith with DUI, but the cops decided that theft charges were best. The end result of the Probation Before Judgment verdict for DUI may allow Smith to retain his job. St. Mary’s State’s Attorney Jaymi Sterling was asked to provide a written statement about this case. If and when she does so, this story will be updated.
Charles County Sheriff Detective Jack Austin, packing heat, wrecked his unmarked police cruiser on a bike trail while DUI in Bowie on Christmas Eve.
One Charles County detective went to Prince George’s County and, following visits to several watering holes, such as the notorious Fraternal Order of Police bar, he drove his police car onto a bike trail and wrecked and was arrested for DWI. After a reported Christmas Eve stopover at a bar in Bowie, Charles County Detective Young Jack Austin, 43, of Pomfret, Md., was arrested for DUI by a City of Bowie Police Officer while he drove an official police vehicle, a 2008 Chevrolet with Maryland tag number 14364M5 on Hindle Lane, in Bowie, Md.
The following is the report from the Bowie Police:
SYNOPSIS OF INCIDENT:
On 12/23/16, Units responded to the area of Hindle Lane for an unknown trouble. Once in the area, Units discovered a vehicle on the bike path from Holiday Lane at Old Collington Rd. It was then determined to be an accident. The driver was located and appeared to be under the influence of alcohol. It was also learned at this time that the driver was an off-duty Charles County Sheriff Deputy, and the vehicle was his issued unmarked cruiser. Sgt. Rodriguez made notifications to C.C.S.D. and Sgt. Celia responded to the Bowie Police Station. After failing Field Sobriety Tests, the driver was transported to PGPD District 2, where he refused a breath test. He was then transported to the Bowie Police Station and charged. His duty weapon was surrendered to Sgt. Celia. The accident was a single-vehicle accident with no injuries.
WHEN PROSECUTORS WHEEL AND DEAL FOR DRUNK COPS: With the outcome of Probation Before Judgement, a boozing law officer can stay on the job.
Austin went to court in Prince George’s County on April 14, 2017, and in a plea deal with Prince Georges States Attorney Angela Alsobrooks, entered a guilty plea to DWI and received a verdict of Probation Before Judgement. Austin was able to avoid jail time, was fined $500 but $250 of the fine was suspended as part of the plea deal.
Charles Sheriff Officer Indicted as Pimp, Charged with Rape and Prostitution
On November 4, 2022, a Charles County Grand Jury indicted Bryan Antwain Keys, Jr., 36, a Charles County Sheriff’s officer, in connection with second-degree rape, solicitation of prostitution, and misconduct in office. Keys, a seven-year veteran of the Agency, was relieved of his duties in January 2022 after the Agency was made aware of the allegations. In accordance with Agency policy, the CCSO’s Office of Professional Responsibility conducted an administrative investigation, and the Criminal Investigations Division began working with the Charles County State’s Attorney’s Office to investigate. As a result of the indictment, Keys was arrested on a criminal warrant on November 4. Today, a judge ordered that Keys be released from the Charles County Detention Center as long as he meets the requirements for electronic monitoring. In accordance with Agency policy, Keys was suspended without pay until his court hearing. Major Ronald Farrell, Assistant Sheriff of Administration, said, “This officer’s actions are contrary to the values and the professionalism of the Agency. I want to make our community aware of this indictment and reassure them that we investigated these allegations to the fullest extent.” The Charles County Sheriff’s Office is committed to maintaining public trust and encourages anyone with a complaint to contact the agency or submit a complaint via the CCSO website: www.ccso.us.