Did state AG order troopers to speed and use sirens as they drove him to appointments? He denies it
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Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler came out swinging after he was accused of regularly ordering state troopers to turn on the lights and sirens, speed and run red lights as they drove him to routine appointments.
The Washington Post obtained police documents detailing the allegations, including a December 2011 memo written by Lt. Charles Ardolini, commander of the state police executive protection section. The written accounts said that when troopers refused to turn on the lights and sirens, Gansler sometimes flipped the switch himself, the Post reported last weekend. On other occasions, according to the allegations, he insisted on driving himself, once running four red lights.
The Post obtained the documents under the state public information act.
Gansler denied the allegations in a TV interview on Tuesday in which he called Ardolini a “henchman” of Gov. Martin O’Malley and Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, report the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun. Brown is Gansler’s chief opponent in his bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. The Washington Post article is “100 percent, completely untrue,” Gansler said.
State police leaders responded with a statement calling Gansler’s henchman remarks “unseemly and unacceptable.”
Gansler’s campaign later released a statement in which he said he has the utmost respect for the state police and his only disagreement is “with the conclusions and conjecture of an internal memo.”
