GLEN BURNIE, Md. (WMAR) — Nearly 10,000 signatures and counting – that's how many people have signed a petition calling for Judge Devy Patterson Russell to be removed.
Click here to see the petition.
She's the Baltimore city judge temporarily assigned to the court in Glen Burnie – the same judge that denied 22-year-old Tyrique Hudson's petition of peace order against his neighbor at the Colonial Square apartment complex off Oakwood Road.
Judge Russell determined the order 'could not meet the required burden of proof.'
In the order filed in February, Hudson said 53-year-old James Verombeck gave him a 'death gesture, using his thumbs across his throat.'
Two months later, Hudson was dead.
RELATED: 53 year old arrested for killing of 22-year-old neighbor in Glen Burnie, AACo Police said
After a near nine-hour standoff with Anne Arundel County Police, officers said Verombeck is the one who pulled the trigger.
As a community grieves for the North Carolina A&T graduate, on his own for the first time since graduating from school, questions about if Judge Russell should have been in the position to even consider Hudson's request are being pushed to the forefront.
The Commission on Judicial Disabilities recommended she be suspended for six months, barring the state's court of appeals decision into how Russell is said to have behaved in district court.
The community in and around the Glen Burnie apartment complex said Hudson's death is a painful loss that didn't have to happen.
Verombeck is in jail and was denied bond. He's expected back in court in May.
The Court of Appeals has not made a decision on the recommendation from the Commission on Judicial Disabilities. The court of appeals has until later this year to do so, meaning Russell is still on the bench.
Hudson's funeral is set for this Saturday in his hometown in North Carolina.
