Havre de Grace formalizes civilian safety team after shooting in Bully Rock

A car theft that turned violent in the Bully Rock neighborhood pushed Havre de Grace’s mayor to formalize a community volunteer safety program that had been operating for about a year.

What happened: Mayor William T. Martin signed an executive order October 5, officially making the city’s Community Emergency Response Team a division of the Havre de Grace Police Department. The order places the team under the authority of the police chief.

Why now: The mayor pointed directly to a recent incident in Bully Rock in which a car was stolen, a second theft was attempted, and when the owner confronted the suspects, they opened fire.

“When someone says, hey, stop stealing my car, and they shoot a gun in that direction, those are some scary things that we must not tolerate in our community,” Martin said.

Martin said he has long believed police alone cannot prevent crime from happening in the first place. “I always thought to myself, you know, you can have all the police you want, but they don’t stop crime. They solve crime,” he said. He framed the volunteer team as the community’s “extra set of eyes and ears” to help deter crime before it happens.

About the team: The Havre de Grace Community Emergency Response Team was founded in October 2025 as a Bully Rock neighborhood initiative. It has since grown to 25 trained volunteers and expanded citywide. Sergeant Dan Petz of the Havre de Grace Police Department serves as the department’s liaison to the team. The team is now headquartered at the Havre de Grace Ambulance Corps.

What CERT volunteers do: The Community Emergency Response Team is a national program run by FEMA, the federal government’s emergency management agency, and operates in all 50 states. Volunteers are trained to help residents and first responders during emergencies until professional help arrives. Training covers fire safety, light search and rescue, basic medical care, CPR, first aid, and awareness of terrorism threats. The training takes between 18 and 21 hours to complete. Volunteers are not paid.

Under the executive order, all team members must complete approved FEMA training and serve at the discretion of the police chief, who can remove any member from service.

What the council did: Council member Johnny Boker moved to support the executive order with one condition: any use of city money or city resources by the team must first be approved by the council. The motion passed. All six council members were present.

Boker said he wants to make sure funding does not quietly disappear. “I just want to make sure that when the existing funds right now start to become depleted, that council is going to actually support, continue to support the CERT program,” he said.

The city previously set aside $10,000 in its budget to help the team get started, covering equipment such as walkie-talkies and safety vests.

Council member Lizz Clarke cited a separate tragedy to illustrate the value of trained civilian responders — a child shot and killed by a stray bullet at a Parks and Recreation football game in Baltimore. “I think having more people who can step in like you guys and help and train and work under the supervision of our Police Department is just huge,” Clark said.

What’s new: Before the executive order, the team operated informally with the police department as its sponsor. It is now officially a division of the department, giving it formal standing within city government.

The path forward: The city of Aberdeen has already contacted Havre de Grace to ask about starting its own program. Volunteer training in Havre de Grace is ongoing, and the team’s $10,000 startup budget will eventually need to be replenished through future council action.