DBLASTMEDIA NEWS

Marcus A. Jones worked as a secretary for the City of Seat Pleasant but aspired to become a police officer. In August 2015, Jones was suspended from work after an altercation with another secretary. According to inside sources, Jones repeatedly screamed at a female coworker and slammed office doors as the City Administrator attempted to defuse the situation. Read more...

Robert Ploof spent his childhood building Lego police stations and playing cops and robbers with friends. He idolized police officers and dreamed of a career in public safety. Ploof landed a security job on his 18th birthday and began preparing for police entrance exams. Months after taking his first civil service test, Ploof received an excited phone call from his mother. Read more...

A Capitol Heights police officer indicted last month by a Harford County grand jury for first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and false imprisonment now faces more charges for allegedly contacting the victim. Read more...

Former St. Mary's County Commissioner John E. O'Connor pleaded guilty this week to willfully filing false tax returns for 2023 and 2024. O'Connor will be sentenced in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court on a later date. Read more...

Forest Heights Police Sergeant Jalen Rasard Cephus is facing first- and second-degree assault charges following an off-duty altercation in Waldorf, Maryland. According to charging documents, Cephus punched and choked his friend's romantic partner during an argument. Read more...

The Maryland State Prosecutor’s Office is investigating John E. O’Connor and former District Heights Police Chief Ronald Tarpley for alleged fraud and bribery offenses. Sources say Tarpley outsourced the police department’s grant management to his longtime friend O’Connor in 2023, an arrangement that abruptly ended in July 2025 when municipal employees discovered invoices with falsified business names and charges for equipment and services that were never delivered. Read more

Chief Mark Cummings was a Maryland State Police Sergeant before joining the Capitol Heights Police Department in 2017. Records indicate that Cummings' career was unremarkable. Of his twenty plus year with MSP, DBlastMedia found only one reference to Cummings online. In that instance, a reporter quoted information he provided about a highway incident. Read more...

Newly obtained dashcam video from District Heights is raising concerns about a local cop and his repairman cousin. Sources tell DBlastMedia that Sergeant Ronald Govan arranged for his cousin Sean Fritz to inspect a police truck's faulty emergency lights. It took Fritz less than five minutes to locate a misconnected wire and restore the lights. Read more...

Maryland State Police arrested District Heights Police Chief Ronald Tarpley for drunk driving after an early morning vehicle crash on Pennsylvania Avenue in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. He is scheduled to appear in court on January 5, 2026. Read more...

The Maryland State Prosecutor's Office has launched a criminal investigation for bribery and theft involving District Heights Police Chief Ronald Tarpley and his longtime friends John E. O'Connor and Matthew Davis. Tarpley fired the deputy chief who uncovered evidence of their criminal misconduct totaling more than $100,000. Read more...

Lieutenant Jaime Matthews had just finished guzzling alcohol at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, when he got behind the wheel of an unmarked Dodge Durango police truck on March 26, around 12:19 am, and began the seventeen-minute drive home. Read more...

Sources told DBlastMedia there was a massive sigh of relief at the Seat Pleasant Police Department on Friday when employees received word of Police Chief Devan Martin's departure. One staffer, who plans to celebrate with co-workers this weekend, said it was a moment many employees had long hoped would come. Read more...