Man accused of killing Wicomico sheriff’s deputy was set free 2 years ago by Baltimore authorities after armed robbery

Austin Jacob Allen Davidson, the man accused of shooting and killing a Wicomico County sheriff’s deputy on Sunday, was set free by Baltimore authorities two years ago after pleading guilty to an armed robbery he committed as a teenager.

The details of his release have become a flashpoint for politicians and law enforcement officials in the wake of the deputy’s death, with Gov. Larry Hogan and the Wicomico County sheriff criticizing the freeing of Davidson.

The office of Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Marilyn Mosby, a Democrat, issued a statement Tuesday seeking to deflect blame for Davidson’s release.

“In this case, the prosecutor secured a conviction and made a sentence recommendation of jail time,” said spokeswoman Zy Richardson. “The court imposed a sentence of probation before judgment.”

However, that’s not exactly true.

While a brief prison sentence was recommended, a city prosecutor said in court that Davidson should be sentenced to time served and given probation, which also would have set him free.

His public defenders had worked out a deal with city prosecutors, according to their statements in court. If Davidson could get into a juvenile placement program and succeed, prosecutors would agree to a sentence of “probation before judgment.” If he completed probation, such a sentence would result in his guilty plea being vacated and allow him to have a clean record.

But no such program had an opening due to the coronavirus pandemic, which had struck earlier that year. Under the agreement, if a juvenile program was not available, Davidson would be sentenced to 10 years in prison with all but 18 months suspended.

In court, however, the prosecutor agreed Davidson should be sentenced to no more than the time he had served in pretrial detention, which had been a year. The prosecutor didn’t assent to probation before judgment because of the serious nature of the charge.

Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn, however, chose probation before judgment and instituted three years of supervised probation.

Two years later, Phinn’s decision has come under scrutiny because Davidson allegedly embarked on an Eastern Shore crime spree that culminated with the fatal shooting of the deputy.

Davidson, 20, of Delmar, killed Deputy 1st Class Glenn Hilliard, police said, as the 16-year law enforcement veteran sought to arrest him on several felony warrants.

At a news conference Monday where they announced Davidson’s arrest and mourned Hilliard’s death, officials including Hogan, a Republican, and Republican Sheriff Mike Lewis decried the sentence imposed by the Baltimore judge as lenient. Lewis said Davidson belonged in prison and would not have been able to kill his deputy had he been behind bars. Hogan blasted state Democratic lawmakers for not passing legislation to institute stiffer penalties for those convicted of gun crimes.

While Mosby’s office blamed the judge for Davidson’s release, Assistant State’s Attorney Casey Brinks, who has since left the office, said in court before Phinn that he was agreeable to a punishment that allowed Davidson to “get out of detention and move on with his life.”

“There are circumstances outside of Mr. Davidson’s control and the state is not trying to punish someone, who, for all intents and purposes, has done well, done the best he can, and it’s not his fault he couldn’t go into placement,” Brinks said, according to a recording of the hearing. He added that he had no objection, based on a conversation with the victim’s mother, to a sentence of 10 years with all but the time he’d already served suspended, plus three years on probation.

Brinks expressed concern about a sentence of probation before judgment because of the details of Davidson’s crime, which he committed in 2019, when he was 17. According to charging documents, Davidson leaned through the drive-thru window of a McDonald’s where he used to work and pried open the register. When a girl working at the window approached, he pointed a handgun at her.

Before his sentencing, Davidson told the judge in a letter that he had done well in pretrial detention, obtaining a GED certificate, and hoped to go to college.

“I’ve been talking to my social worker and they have a plan for if I get released that I’ll be staying at a hotel temporarily on the Eastern Shore until they find somewhere for me to go — a group home, a foster home or independent living,” Davidson told Phinn during the July 2020 sentencing hearing.

Phinn asked Davidson several questions before granting his release and ordered him to report to a probation agent in Wicomico County, not far from where Davidson, who had spent time in foster care in Baltimore, said his grandmother lived. She made sure he had plans to be picked up by a social worker, so she wasn’t setting him free, in her words, “wandering the streets of Baltimore City.”

She encouraged him to create a five-year plan to stay on track and hoped he would follow through on his desire to go to college.

“This is a serious offense,” Phinn said, “but I’m willing to give you an opportunity. ... If you go back to this behavior, you’re going to owe me 20 years, and I won’t hesitate to give it to you if you get involved with another armed robbery.”

Bradley Tanner, spokesman for the Maryland Judiciary, said: “Judges and the Maryland Judiciary cannot comment on cases.”

There were problems with Davidson’s probation almost immediately, court records show, and ultimately, Phinn issued an arrest warrant May 9 for Davidson for a violation of his probation.

By then, online records show, he had pleaded guilty to one offense and been charged with several more crimes. According to court documents:

• In February, he pleaded guilty to having more than 10 grams of marijuana in Worcester County.

• In April, he was charged with assault for allegedly beating a man at an under-21 club in Ocean City.

• Later the same month, a woman left her home in Delmar and found her car had been keyed and her rear license plate ripped off. She told police she suspected Davidson, whose advances she had rejected. Officers found the woman’s license plate by Davidson’s door and filed charges against him for malicious destruction of property.

• Come May 20, Davidson was facing yet another set of charges, this time in Somerset County: burglary, possession of a rifle or shotgun despite a disqualifying conviction, and theft of up to $25,000. Davidson allegedly shot his way into a convenience store in Eden with an assault rifle and stole what the owner estimated to be $14,000 worth of cash, lottery tickets, cigarettes and cigars. A man came to the store owner after hearing about the burglary and told him he suspected his rifle, which had been stolen, was used in the break-in. Officers met with the man and his son, who believed the gun had been stolen by his friend, Davidson.

Police wrote that they tracked down Davidson by searching law enforcement databases and social media. A Facebook account listed in charging documents relating to the convenience store theft shows a photo of Davidson with forearm tattoos, which detectives said they saw in the store’s surveillance footage.

Hilliard, the slain deputy, was looking for Davidson in an apartment complex in the small town of Pittsville that he was known to frequent. Canvassing the apartments for a second time Sunday, Hilliard saw Davidson in a stairwell. As Hilliard pulled closer, Davidson fled. Lewis said his deputy gained ground on the man quickly. Hilliard threatened to use a stun gun and deployed it, but it was ineffective.

As they approached a stretch of woods, Davidson turned, held up a handgun with two hands and fired several rounds at Hilliard, striking him at least once, charging documents said. Lewis said the shooting was captured on Hilliard’s body-worn camera. The deputy didn’t get a chance to draw his gun and, after he collapsed to the ground, Davidson approached and stood over him momentarily before running away.

Hilliard died at TidalHealth Peninsula Regional Hospital in Salisbury.

Dozens of law enforcement officers swarmed the area of the shooting, officials said. With authorities bearing down on him, Davidson called and sent messages to friends, according to court documents charging him with murder in Hilliard’s death. Davidson called a woman and told her to check her social media. She opened his message: “I shot a cop I was scared I love u bye,” it read, according to the court documents.

After being on the run for about two hours, Davidson emerged from a tract of woods lined by police cars and surrendered.

He waived a bail hearing Tuesday in Wicomico County District Court. He is being represented by the office of the public defender, which declined to comment.