Anton Black Case: $5M Settlement, Homicide Ruling, and Anton’s Law

The Anton Black case began on September 15, 2018, when a 19-year-old Black man died on his mother’s front ramp in Greensboro, Maryland, after three white police officers and a white civilian restrained him in a prone position for several minutes. Seven years of litigation and advocacy have since produced a $5 million settlement with three Eastern Shore towns, a separate settlement forcing reforms at the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, a state transparency law bearing his name, and a 2025 state audit concluding that his death should have been ruled a homicide rather than an accident. As of late 2025, his case is one of 41 under preliminary review by the Maryland Attorney General’s office to decide whether criminal investigation is warranted.

What Happened on September 15, 2018

Black was walking with a 12-year-old family friend when witnesses called 911 after seeing him pulling and dragging the younger boy. At least one witness described the interaction as ordinary roughhousing. Black had been diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder months earlier and, according to his family’s later federal lawsuit, was in a mental health crisis. The 12-year-old told the responding officer that Black was “schizophrenic,” and the officer relayed that to dispatchers.¹

Greensboro Police Officer Thomas Webster IV arrived first. He was joined by off-duty Ridgely Police Chief Gary Manos, off-duty Centreville Police Officer Dennis Lannon, and an unnamed civilian.² The four men chased Black to a wooden handicap ramp in front of his mother’s home, used a stun gun on him, wrestled him to the ground, handcuffed and shackled him, and held him face-down. One officer stayed on top of Black for roughly six minutes. Black stopped breathing and was pronounced dead at the scene.³

The Disputed Autopsy and Why No One Was Charged

The Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, then led by Dr. David Fowler, ruled the death accidental. The report attributed it to “sudden cardiac death” linked to a congenital heart condition, listed bipolar disorder and the stress of the struggle as contributing factors, and said there was no evidence the restraint had asphyxiated Black.⁴ The family disputed that account and argued Black died of positional asphyxiation caused by the weight of the men on top of him. A Johns Hopkins cardiologist who later reviewed the evidence agreed with the family and identified asphyxiation as the cause.²

The medical finding drove the prosecutorial decision. In January 2019, Caroline County State’s Attorney Joseph Riley announced no criminal charges would be filed, citing the medical examiner’s conclusions and saying his office was “not empowered to prosecute tragic acts.” He also declined to convene a grand jury.⁵

Officer Webster’s Record and the Chief Who Hid It

The officer who initiated the encounter had a long, documented history of violence. Before joining Greensboro in early 2018, Webster served with the Dover, Delaware, police, where officials filed 29 use-of-force reports on him between 2006 and 2015. The family’s lawsuit alleged most of those incidents involved Black victims.⁶ A 2006 evaluation flagged him as prone to excessive force after he punched a Black man in the face multiple times following a car chase. In 2010 he shattered a man’s nose during a drunk-driving arrest and, in a separate incident that year, punched another man four times in the face after stunning him. A 2012 evaluation said Webster “has made some poor decisions and he obviously does not think of the consequences of his actions.”⁷

The best-known incident was a 2013 encounter captured on dashcam, in which Webster kicked 29-year-old Lateef Dickerson in the face while Dickerson was on his hands and knees, shattering his jaw. Webster was charged with second-degree assault and acquitted by a jury in December 2015 after testifying he had aimed for Dickerson’s torso. Dover paid Dickerson $300,000 to settle a subsequent ACLU lawsuit and paid Webster himself $230,000 in exchange for his resignation and an agreement never to seek city employment again.⁸

Greensboro Police Chief Michael Petyo hired Webster anyway. According to the family’s suit, Petyo omitted most of Webster’s history of excessive force from the certification application filed with the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission, disclosing only the 2015 trial and acquittal.⁷ In July 2019, the commission decertified Webster after confirming he had failed to disclose nearly 30 Dover use-of-force reports.⁹ Petyo, who stepped down in January 2019, was charged with misconduct in office by the Maryland State Prosecutor for lying on the certification application. He pleaded guilty in January 2020 and was sentenced to two years, all suspended, plus three years of supervised probation.¹⁰

The Federal Lawsuit and What It Won

On December 17, 2020, the ACLU of Maryland filed Black et al. v. Webster IV et al. (Case No. 1:20-cv-03644-CCB) in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland on behalf of Black’s family and the Coalition for Justice for Anton Black. The complaint named the three officers, the towns of Greensboro, Ridgely, and Centreville, two police chiefs, and the state medical examiner. It alleged an unconstitutional police killing driven by excessive force and racial bias, followed by a cover-up, and charged that the autopsy was “written to obfuscate the otherwise obvious and inescapable conclusion that the involved police officers caused Anton’s death by interfering with his ability to breathe.”¹¹ A federal judge denied motions to dismiss and allowed the excessive force claims to proceed.¹²

The $5 Million Settlement With the Towns

In August 2022, the family and the Coalition reached a $5 million settlement with Greensboro, Ridgely, Centreville, and their police departments. Beyond the money, the towns agreed to overhaul use-of-force policies, provide mental health training, require annual training in implicit bias and de-escalation, increase transparency in hiring, and make it easier for residents to file complaints.¹³

The Medical Examiner Settlement

The claims against the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner were resolved separately. On November 8, 2023, the Maryland Board of Public Works unanimously approved a settlement providing $100,000 to Black’s family and estate and $135,000 to the Coalition’s attorneys.¹⁴ The dollar figure was the smaller part. The agreement required the medical examiner’s office to:

Follow National Association of Medical Examiners guidelines for in-custody deaths, including classifying a death as homicide if it would not have occurred “but for the intentional conduct of another person.”
Restrict input on autopsies, inspections, and examinations to employees of the medical examiner’s office, shielding investigations from outside police influence.
Require the chief or deputy medical examiner to approve all completed autopsy results before release.
Inform families receiving autopsy reports of their right to seek corrections or a review of findings.¹⁵

The Statewide Audit and the Homicide Finding

Black’s case turned out to sit inside a much larger pattern. In April 2021, Dr. Fowler testified as a defense witness in the trial of Derek Chauvin, arguing George Floyd’s death should be classified as “undetermined” rather than a homicide. More than 400 medical experts responded with an open letter to the Maryland Attorney General warning that Fowler’s conclusions “deviated way outside the bounds of accepted forensic practice.”¹⁶

Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office launched an audit of in-custody deaths from Fowler’s tenure as chief medical examiner, 2002 to 2019. An independent audit design team pulled 87 cases of unexpected death during or shortly after restraint from more than 1,300 in-custody death cases. Twelve forensic pathologists averaging 14 years of experience performed blinded independent reviews between September and December 2024.¹⁷

The results, released May 15, 2025, showed disagreement with the original ruling in more than half of the 87 cases. Reviewers judged 48 deaths to be homicides; the medical examiner’s office had originally classified only 12 that way. In 36 cases the reviewers unanimously found homicide despite original rulings of undetermined, accidental, or natural. The audit found the office was especially unlikely to classify a death as homicide if the person who died was Black or had been restrained by police, and it had referenced “excited delirium,” a now-debunked diagnosis, in nearly half of the audited cases.¹⁷¹⁶ Anton Black’s case was specifically identified: reviewers concluded his death should have been classified as a homicide.¹⁸

Whether Anyone Will Be Prosecuted

The same day the audit was released, Governor Wes Moore signed Executive Order 01.01.2025.11 directing the Attorney General to review each of the 41 cases the reviewers reclassified as homicides. The order authorized consultation with local state’s attorneys about reopening cases for investigation, with assistance from the Maryland State Police. It also created the 21-member Maryland Task Force on In-Custody Restraint-Related Death Investigations, which began meeting in October 2025 and must report to the governor by December 31, 2026.¹⁹²⁰

Attorney General Anthony Brown cautioned that reclassifying a death as a homicide does not necessarily mean “those actions rose to the level of criminal liability or culpability.”²¹ As of the Attorney General’s first annual report on December 29, 2025, all 41 cases, including Black’s, remained under “preliminary investigatory review,” with no case yet formally reopened for prosecution.²²

Anton’s Law

Black’s death also drove new legislation. “Anton’s Law” (SB 178), enacted as part of the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021 and effective October 1, 2021, classified police internal discipline and complaint records as separate from personnel records, making them accessible under the Maryland Public Information Act. Before the law, these records were shielded as part of an officer’s personnel file.²³

Police unions have challenged it. The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 35 sued Montgomery County after a resident requested an officer’s disciplinary records, arguing that disclosing unfounded or unsubstantiated allegations violated officers’ due process and equal protection rights. The ACLU of Maryland intervened for the Maryland Coalition for Justice and Police Accountability.²⁴ In April 2026, Montgomery County Circuit Judge J. Bradford McCullough upheld the law, finding that disclosure does not violate officers’ privacy or constitutional rights, and invalidated a side agreement between the FOP and the county that had created a 10-day delay allowing officers to try to block releases. McCullough ruled the agreement “flies in the face” of the Maryland Public Information Act.²⁵

1
Maryland Matters. State Police Probing Whether Officer in Anton Black Case May Have Violated His Agency’s Guidelines for Pursuing Suspects
2
My Eastern Shore MD. Anton Black’s Cause of Death Should Be Ruled Homicide, Audit Finds
3
CNS Maryland. Family of Teen Killed in Police Custody in 2018 Awarded Settlement
4
NBC Washington. Maryland Officials Approve Settlement to Reform Autopsy Process After Teen’s In-Custody Death
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NPR. No Charges in Death of Black Teenager Who Died After Being Chased by Police
6
ACLU of Maryland. Family, Supporters File Federal Suit Charging Wrongful Death, Cover-Up in Police Killing
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ACLU of Maryland. Black et al. v. Webster IV et al., Amended Complaint
8
NBC Philadelphia. Dover Delaware Police Kick Lawsuit ACLU
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CBS News Baltimore. Officer Involved in Anton Black’s Death Loses Police Certification
10
Maryland Office of the State Prosecutor. Greensboro Police Chief Pleads Guilty to Misconduct in Office
11
ACLU of Maryland. Black et al. v. Webster IV et al.
12
WBOC. Judge Refuses to Toss Excessive Force Claims in Greensboro Man’s Death
13
Maryland Matters. Family of Anton Black, Coalition Seeking Justice for His Death Reach $5M Settlement With Eastern Shore Towns
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Maryland Matters. Settlement Five Years After Anton Black’s Police Custody Death Includes Reforms to State Medical Examiner’s Office
15
ACLU of Maryland. Anton Black Family and Justice Coalition Secure Settlement With Maryland Medical Examiner
16
CNN. Maryland Autopsies Deaths Misclassified
17
Maryland Office of the Attorney General. OCME Audit Report
18
WBAL-TV. Maryland Medical Examiner Audit Results
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Maryland Department of Legislative Services. Executive Order 01.01.2025.11
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Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy. Deaths in Custody Task Force
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Fox Baltimore. Family of Maryland Man Anton Black, Accountability, Reclassified Homicide
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Maryland Department of Legislative Services. Executive Order 01.01.2025.11 – First Annual Report
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AFRO American Newspapers. What Is Anton’s Law
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ACLU of Maryland. Police Accountability Coalition Moves to Intervene to Defend Anton’s Law Against Secretive Challenge
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The Daily Record. Montgomery County Judge Upholds Anton’s Law, Police Records