© 2001 The Washington Post Company
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
Prince George's Replacing Homicide Unit Commander
By Jamie Stockwell and April Witt
The commanding officer of the Prince George's County police homicide squad is being replaced after interrogation-room tactics used by his detectives came under scrutiny and the county prosecutor said their "unprofessional" conduct was undermining justice.
Lt. Michael McQuillan, a 30-year veteran of the force who has headed the homicide unit for almost nine years, is being transferred to a unit that reviews and tests new equipment and tactics, said Lt. Edward Kollman, a police spokesman.
Sources in the department said the transfer, effective Oct. 14, was an effort by top police officials to "show the public they are making changes" and to encourage McQuillan's resignation from the 1,400-member force.
Lt. Larry Gordon, who has worked in the patrol bureau for several years, will take command of the homicide unit. Officers had expected McQuillan's transfer for several weeks, one source said.
Police Chief John S. Farrell declined to comment on McQuillan's transfer, as did Maj. Gary Corso, who commands the division that includes the homicide unit. Officials said McQuillan also would not comment, and he could not be reached.
Kollman described McQuillan's transfer as "a way to let others get a shot at the position."
It was the first major shuffle in the homicide unit since June, when The Washington Post published a series of articles documenting how homicide detectives used coercive interrogation-room tactics to gain murder confessions from innocent men. The yearlong investigation by the newspaper found that suspects were subjected to extraordinarily long interrogations, sometimes up to 40 hours, were routinely denied lawyers and were deprived of sleep.
During McQuillan's tenure as commander, interviews and police documents suggested, homicide detectives put greater emphasis on extracting confessions than on collecting and analyzing physical evidence.
In the months since the series was published, homicide detectives have admitted in court testimony that they failed to provide suspects with required Miranda warnings and that they denied requests for attorneys. County prosecutors and jurors have criticized as sloppy the work done by the homicide unit, resulting in charges being dropped in two murder cases and a mistrial in another.
State's Attorney Jack B. Johnson has feuded openly with the department and recently said that detectives extracted a false confession from an innocent person but then kept that information hidden even from prosecutors. Johnson declined to comment yesterday.
Keith Longtin, who was jailed for eight months before DNA evidence proved that he did not kill his wife, said yesterday that McQuillan's transfer would not resolve the problems in the police department.
"As long as they have [Farrell] in there, I don't think there is much that's going to change," he said. "He's been saying what the homicide unit did was okay. He's been taking up for the bad cops, not for the public."
JoAnn Beale, whose learning-disabled son was coerced in 1998 into confessing to a murder he didn't commit, said yesterday she was angry about McQuillan's transfer.
"He's still on the payroll," said Beale, a former federal marshal. "My tax dollars are still paying his salary."
Beale's son Corey, who was 17 at the time, spent months in jail before detectives in a neighboring county exonerated him.
"The teenager who went into that jail is not the same boy who came out. They have destroyed my child. Why? For the sake of saying they had closed a case," Beale said. "They were willing to extract information any way they can, regardless of the truth or the Constitution. I want the satisfaction of knowing that this won't ever again happen to anyone else's child."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company