On the night of August 3, a Land Rover clipped a parked car on Severn Avenue in Annapolis, then ended up on a sidewalk against a tree. The owner, Maryland state Sen. C. Anthony Muse, told the officers who arrived that his driver had parked it there, and that he’d had “one drink.” No sobriety test was given. A licensed driver Muse called took the SUV away around 10 p.m. Six weeks later, on September 16, body-camera footage, dispatch audio and surveillance video obtained by Sinclair’s Spotlight on Maryland became public, and they tell a different story: the surveillance video shows Muse in the driver’s seat before he got out and walked away alone.
Where This Stands Right Now
- As of September 16: body-cam footage records Muse, a Democrat from Prince George’s County, telling Annapolis officers his driver parked the Land Rover and that he had one drink; officers say they “at no time” saw him in the driver’s seat.
- Surveillance video from a nearby business, reviewed by Spotlight on Maryland, shows Muse behind the wheel before the officers arrived.
- No field sobriety test was conducted. Police first said “no crime reported to Annapolis Police that required an investigation,” then acknowledged the call came in as a hit-and-run and was downgraded to a property-damage crash.
- Muse says his passenger-side mirror struck a parked car’s mirror, disputes the hit-and-run label, and says he returned to apologize and exchange insurance information. No charges, no discipline, and no formal finding so far.
What The Cameras Recorded
The body-cam clip is short and, on its own, unremarkable: a senator, a damaged SUV on a curb, a statement about a driver and a drink, and officers who took him at his word. What changes it is the second camera. The surveillance footage, which police described as “very grainy,” shows the Land Rover pulling up with Muse driving. The department says it reviewed its officers’ body-cam footage only after Spotlight on Maryland started asking questions, and has not explained the gap between what its officers wrote and what the neighboring camera captured.
The Two Questions
Every roadside case involving a public official comes down to two questions. Does the video match the official’s account? And did the police do what they would have done for anyone else? On the first, the two videos do not agree, and the one that shows the driver’s seat is not the one the police made. On the second, a hit-and-run call, a vehicle on a sidewalk, and an admitted drink would, for most drivers, produce at least a field sobriety test. Muse got a phone call to a friend with a license.
Why It Matters Beyond Annapolis
Maryland expanded body-worn cameras across its police departments precisely so incidents like this would have a record the public could check. The record exists. The question is what the department did with it: nothing, until a television station requested it. Muse has served in the state Senate for most of the past two decades and sits in a county whose police department has spent years rebuilding public trust. A senator who walked away from a curb-jumped SUV without a test is the kind of story that undoes that work in a single news cycle.
What Happens Next
Spotlight on Maryland says it is still investigating. Watch for whether Annapolis police release the full body-cam footage rather than clips, whether the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney reviews the downgraded hit-and-run call, and whether the Senate’s ethics committee takes it up before the January session. For now the official record says one thing and the camera across the street says another, and the senator is still driving.
Sources:
abcnews4.com (Spotlight on Maryland), thegatewaypundit.com