BREAKING THE BLUE WALL (working title) profiles two women from Baltimore City as they take on the Fraternal Order of Police and the politicians wary of crossing it in the push to repeal one of the oldest and strongest police shield laws in the country, Maryland’s Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights. The film follows grassroots activist Tawanda Jones and state Senator Jill Carter in their decade-long fight for police accountability and delves into the history and impact of the 1974 law, which limited how and when officers could be investigated and disciplined for misconduct. Maryland’s Officers’ Bill of Rights was the first such bill passed in the country, but others soon followed, codifying into law protections for police officers being written into bargaining agreements by the nascent police union movement throughout the nation. The film coalesces during the 2021 legislative session in Annapolis, when, for the first time, an effort to fully repeal the law gains steam, and the world, it seems, finally catches up to Carter and Jones.
