OWINGS MILLS, MD — A high school principal alleges he was race-baited by a police officer in Owings Mills in late July. He and his son had walked a block from their home to where a young African-American man was handcuffed on the side of the road, he told The Baltimore Sun.
Vance Benton, who is the principal of Patterson High School in east Baltimore, said an officer “ranted” about their presence and shone a flashlight in his face. When Benton asked for his name and tried to read his badge through the light, the policeman asked: “‘Can you even read?'” Then the officer reportedly spelled out his name “in an exaggerated way,'” Benton told The Sun.
Benton has a master’s degree. He has been the principal of Patterson High School since 2011 and has been an educator for more than a decade.
In addition to being a leader in the field of education, he is a proponent for mindfulness.
Patterson High School partnered with the Holistic Life Foundation in recent years to add 15 minutes of meditation and breathing exercises into its schedule. Having mindfulness practice built into the school day and a Mindful Moment room where students can go to work through issues helped cut the number of disciplinary issues in half, Benton told The Guardian in 2016.
“Our attendance has improved, our suspensions have decreased,” Benton said of the benefits of the mindfulness program in a May podcast hosted by Colorado-based Naropa University, which was founded by a Buddhist teacher.
“Pause and consider,” Benton said on the podcast, explaining how he has navigated difficulties. “I may consider my anger, my rage right now, but whatever I’m considering, I must pause. Take a moment and understand the totality, and then make the decision.”
After he paused and considered the July 29 incident with the officer in Owings Mills, Benton alerted the Baltimore County police chief and county executive about the policeman’s “innate racial biases and belittling actions,” writing in a letter that he experienced “degradation, disrespect and humiliation,” according to The Baltimore Sun.
He said that before they left, the officer in Owings Mills told Benton’s son: “I will be seeing you again,” implying the youth would have trouble with the law, The Baltimore Sun reported.
Benton’s son is a competitive swimmer at Baltimore City College, an International Baccalaureate school that focuses on college preparedness through the liberal arts.
Benton requested the officer’s behavior be “analyzed and addressed immediately,” according to the newspaper, which said that the Baltimore County Police Department said it was investigating the case and declined to provide body-worn camera footage from the encounter.
Below, Principal Vance Benton leads students in a workshop on how to address bullying.