DELMAR, Md.- Delmar Town Hall was heated inside and out Monday night by demands for more protection for its police department and in turn, the community. A rally took place outside of the joint council meeting, calling for higher salaries for police in the town's budget.
Cpl. Keith Heacook's sisters were among many at Town Hall, demanding change after their brother was beaten to death in the line of duty almost a month before the meeting.
"He has asked for backup the 22 years he's been here," Anita Heacook says.
Voices in the packed meeting room echoed outside on a speaker and through other voices at the rally.
"If you're not willing to put money into the safety of our community, then you're not going to have a safe community," says Ben Jorden of Delmar.
Local real estate agent and longtime member of the community, Pam Price, says she and others are rallying to give police officers in Delmar a more competitive salary, like in other nearby towns. She says the community wants to start going to more town meetings so that they can understand where more funding could come from to give their officers a raise.
"You see all the growth in the last three or four years, we've lost three officers, Cpl. Heacook and two other officers that went to other places and they were barely making over $20 an hour," Price says.
A Freedom of Information Act request to the town shows that a Cadette starts at $41,828 and the chief makes around $75,000. The town manager makes around $89,000.
"We didn't put any increases in for the police department because we were in negotiations," says Delmar, Maryland Mayor Karen Wells. "That's at an impasse. It's going to arbitration and until that arbitrator rules, we don't know what the increases are."
Wells says the town hasn't had a chance to give officers a raise in the budget. Delmar Town Manager Sara Bynum-King says they want to work with the police department to determine what those raises should be.
"If we gave chief a million dollars tonight, he's still not going to have officers on the street next week," Bynum-King says.
Wells says the budget needs to be approved by the end of May.
Matthew Heacook's mother said in a Facebook post over the weekend that President Joe Biden recently called her son to give his condolences after she says he failed to follow through on a promise to meet with Matthew on May 1. She says the president invited them to the White House and that neighbors saw First Lady Jill Biden leave flowers and a note on their doorstep.