Howard County Police Department

Since its founding in 1952, the Howard County Police Department in Maryland, whose Northern District station is in Ellicott City, has grown to 509 authorized sworn positions and 236 full-time civilian employees as of 2025, and it also oversees the county's 911 communications division and Animal Control. Its Technology and Preparedness Bureau, set up in late 2025, splits into an Operational Preparedness Division, which works with the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center and staffs a Real Time Information Center, and a Technology and Analysis Division covering computer operations, body-worn cameras and crime analysis. Officers and dispatchers complete 40 hours of Crisis Intervention Team training delivered with the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center and NAMI, and two Mobile Crisis Teams of mental health professionals respond alongside officers. Through a referral program, dispatchers can transfer some 911 callers in a non-emergency mental health crisis to Grassroots hotline counselors. A Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program steers eligible adults involved in certain low-level misdemeanors toward community services instead of prosecution. Community Outreach and Pathway Section officers are assigned to specific neighborhoods and patrol more than 190 miles of county pathways and trails on mountain bikes and electric motorcycles.