In the late summer of 2018, a 19-year-old Black man named Anton Black, who had been experiencing mental health challenges, had a fatal encounter with police in Greensboro, Maryland. On September 15, 2018, a 911 call was made concerning a man roughly handling a child. The responding officer, Thomas Webster IV, confronted Black. The child involved was a friend of Black's family and informed the officer that Black was 'schizophrenic' and had been acting strangely.
When the officer attempted to arrest him, Black fled to his family's home.
The situation escalated at Black's home, where he sought refuge in a car. The officer broke the car window and used a Taser on him. A struggle ensued, involving Webster, two other law enforcement officials, and a civilian. During this struggle, Black was restrained in a prone position for approximately six minutes, lost consciousness, and went into cardiac arrest while his mother watched nearby, calling out to him. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Initially, the state's medical examiner's office, under the direction of Chief Medical Examiner Dr. David Fowler, ruled Black's death an accident, attributing it to a congenital heart condition and the stress of the struggle. This finding was met with disagreement from Black's family, who maintained that the officers used excessive force. An expert for the family, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins University, later concluded that asphyxiation was the cause of Black's death. The family filed a federal lawsuit, and years later, in May 2025, Black's death was reclassified as a homicide following a review of cases handled by Dr. Fowler's office.
Despite the reclassification, no criminal charges were brought against the officers involved in Black's death. However, Officer Thomas Webster IV was later decertified as a police officer in Maryland after it was revealed he failed to disclose numerous use-of-force reports from his previous employment in Delaware. In August 2022, Anton Black's family reached a $5 million partial settlement in their wrongful death lawsuit. The settlement also included provisions for improved police training and policies.
