A Maryland parole officer reportedly raised concerns before his murder

These concerns, captured by the public safety scanner’s archiving service openmhz.com, are consistent with other concerns raised by probation officers about client Emanuel Sewell of Chevy Chase, according to representatives of the probation officers’ union.

Sewell had been under her supervision since 2021 after serving 25 years in prison for sexual assault and other crimes.

The slain agent, Davis Martinez, 33, had visited him on May 31 for a routine home visit. Martinez was stabbed multiple times in the head and face before his body was wrapped in plastic bags and stuffed under a bed, police said. Sewell, 54, was arrested a day later in West Virginia and charged with murder.

His lawyers declined to comment on the case.

The tragic death – and questions about what safety precautions were in place – are fueling growing controversy between front-line parole officers and their superiors in the Maryland State Parole Department, which is part of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

Union official Stuart Katzenberg said members had “raised several concerns about Sewell” before Martinez’s killing.

He spoke Tuesday, several hours after more than 50 members of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME) gathered in Catonsville to demand improved safety measures.

Among the union’s demands is an increase in staffing levels, which would allow agents to conduct the visits in pairs – rather than alone, as Martinez had done.

The union also called for “a third-party investigation into the issues that led to the killing of Agent Davis Martinez.”

Officials with the Department of Public Safety and Corrections declined Tuesday to comment on the specific police radio traffic that raised Martinez’s concerns, but a spokesman there said the department was committed to correcting any safety deficiencies following Martinez’s death.

“The department took immediate and decisive action to review and improve our current policies and practices,” the spokesperson said. “This re-evaluation includes the review of equipment and policies affecting every aspect of the probation officers’ work.”

Areas of focus include home visits and whether high-risk customers should be visited by agents alone.

The department had previously announced a restructuring of the probation and corrections department and said the incidents surrounding Martinez’s death would continue to be investigated.

Sewell’s criminal record dates back to at least the mid-1990s. In 1997, he pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault. He was accused of climbing through the window of a ground-floor apartment of a man he did not know and raping him at knifepoint.

After his release from prison in 2021, he was required to make monthly home visits from probation officers as a convicted sex offender. A probation officer assigned to that task earlier this year had concerns about entering his home, according to Rayneika Robinson, president of the AFSCME chapter of probation officers.

“Agent Martinez became aware of the case because one of his colleagues didn’t want him. She felt unsafe,” Robinson said in an interview. “He didn’t want his colleague to feel unsafe leaving the house. So he went and went to the house for her.”

Robinson said the case was officially handed over to Martinez on May 7.

It was not immediately clear how much agency managers knew about the change or what the reason was for it.

Martinez visited Sewell’s apartment on May 31 for a home visit. According to a witness statement to police included in court charging documents, he appeared to have arrived there around 9 a.m. He was wearing a bulletproof vest but was not armed with a handgun. Probation officers are not armed, according to their union.

Court records do not indicate when Martinez was attacked. A witness said Sewell left his apartment around 2 p.m., charging documents say.

Just before 6 p.m., Montgomery County police received a call to go to Sewell’s apartment and check on the agent’s well-being. As they tried to figure out what was going on — searching for the agent’s car, trying to reach him by phone, and growing increasingly concerned — an officer radioed in and told his colleagues what he had learned about information reported to the parole board’s system:

“There is an entry in the P&P system where this missing agent spoke to this client on the phone and the client said he no longer wanted to be harassed by the parole board and would not cooperate,” the officer said, according to openmhz.com. “This phone call took place on May 7 of this year.”

Eventually, officers were able to force their way in. Scan records show that they discovered blood on the floor and Martinez’s body and called homicide detectives to the scene.

At 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, union members gathered in Catonsville to lobby for more changes they want to see following the murder of a parole officer. After the administration came under criticism last week, state leaders announced they had appointed three interim chiefs, including one to lead the parole department. However, it was not made clear what had become of the former positions.