Annapolis Police Chief Ed Jackson suspended two of his officers last month after learning about what he called a “rogue investigation” into a member of his command staff and said he had “lost faith in their ability to take direction.”

The chief, who recently celebrated his five-year anniversary with the department, described the public condemnations of the suspensions by the city’s police union, and the internal efforts to oust his leadership team, as racist, something union representatives deny.

“It’s not specifically enumerated that you can be suspended for disrespecting the chief,” Jackson said. “But I think disrespecting the chief falls under the purview of conduct unbecoming.”

In an interview Thursday, Jackson and Deputy Chief Maj. Stan Brandford said the officers in question had acted without authority during a time of personal turmoil for Brandford, tracking his movements through his police vehicle when he was working remotely.

The deputy chief, who once worked alongside Jackson in the Baltimore Police Department, was tending to his 22-year-old daughter after she suffered a heart attack. Initially given two weeks to live, Brandford’s daughter spent 145 days in the intensive care unit alone and has undergone five open heart surgeries. To tend to her, Brandford used 11 months of leave, most of which was donated by other city employees, before Jackson gave him permission to work from home.

“For this [officer], in the midst of all this, to decide that he was gonna go and track my whereabouts, I find it horrendous that he would do something like this,” Brandford said.

The officers, who have not been named publicly by city administrators or the city police union, were suspended July 19 for allegedly bringing “discredit” to the department and its senior leadership during a meeting with Mayor Gavin Buckley earlier this year.

However, according to the mayor’s office, an independent review by the Baltimore Police Department’s Public Integrity Bureau found there was no “clear breach of internal policy” and the officers were reinstated Tuesday.

The United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400, which has represented Annapolis Police officers since 1980, has described the suspended officers as “whistleblowers” unfairly retaliated against for reporting “waste and mismanagement” within the department.

Buckley interpreted the complaints relayed to him as “personal disagreements” with the chief’s leadership and said the first time he heard “whistleblower” was after the union announced the suspension. The mayor said that if he considered the meeting to be a whistleblower complaint, he would have had a city attorney present.

Conversely, Jackson said he saw the officers’ actions as an “extremely reckless” attempt to undermine the department and its leadership and a continuation of years of hostility between him and a “small number” of influential personnel. The meeting with the mayor and the union’s statements since the suspension — calling for “homegrown, highly-capable” commanders — were “based on their racist views that we don’t deserve to be there,” Brandford said.

Both Jackson and Brandford are Black, as are Capt. Lamar Howard and fiscal services Director Ronda McCoy, other members of the command staff from Baltimore.

“When they refer to us as the ‘Baltimore-based command staff,’ that tells me there’s racism involved,” Brandford said. “When they say that these clowns need to get in the car and send them home, that means there’s racism involved in that. When they come to the mayor with a succession plan with confidence the mayor is going to follow it and fire the chief, that tells me there’s racism involved.”

“I’m not quick to call anything or anyone racist,” Brandford added. “But in this case, there’s an element there.”

Buckley, who is white, said Friday he did not hear “anything directly racist,” in his May 3 meeting with the officers but that language like clowns was “concerning.” The mayor also said he does not agree with the sentiment that anything involving Baltimore, where Jackson, Brandford and other members of the Annapolis command staff are from, is bad or wrong.

“We should be grateful that people want to come down from Glen Burnie or Baltimore or wherever and help with public safety,” the mayor said. “We’re lucky that they chose us.”

Buckley said he appointed Jackson in 2019 for his “lived experience” at a time when race relations between the police and communities were “the biggest challenge in our country.”

Jackson, 65, grew up with five siblings in public housing in Baltimore. An academic with a doctorate in public safety leadership, he has embraced a social response to crime — one focused on both enforcing the law and addressing the ills that lead to delinquency.