Editor's Note: This is the third of three interviews with the candidates for Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office. They are being released in the order in which the candidates filed to run. 2 BMore reached out to incumbent Marilyn Mosby to take part in these candidate conversations. State's Attorney Mosby has not responded to our invitation.
One of the most watched races in the 2022 Maryland Primary election is for Baltimore City State's Attorney. Incumbent Marilyn Mosby faces two challengers in the Democrat Primary, Ivan Bates and Thiru Vignarajah. A third challenger, Roya Hanna, initially filed to run as a Democrat and then switched to an Independent. In this special episode of 2 BMore, host T.J. Smith sits down for a conversation with Candidate Vignarajah.
T.J. Smith is a retired police commander, former chief spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department, former press secretary for the Baltimore County Executive, and a former Baltimore City mayoral candidate. More recently, Smith partnered with Jimmy’s Famous Fund where he assisted in raising more than $600,000 over the past year that was donated to small restaurants in Baltimore, children for a holiday experience, and the families of a police officer and firefighters killed in the line of duty. In addition to hosting the 2Bmore Podcast, Smith consults on government, leadership, and law enforcement issues. He is also a frequent guest on a national news outlet and TV One network programming.
Thiru Vignarajah is a former federal prosecutor in the Violent Crimes Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He also served as Chief of Major Investigations in the State’s Attorney’s Office, which was responsible for handling the “toughest cases against the city’s worst criminals.” Vignarajah was honored by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein for his work successfully prosecuting the Black Guerilla Family (BGF), the city’s most ruthless gang.
After his time in the State's Attorney's Office, Vignarajah was named Deputy Attorney General for the State of Maryland, where he made Maryland the first state in America to establish statewide discriminatory profiling guidelines.
Vignarajah has pledged to bring record violence to record lows and, at the same time, forge the most innovative, transparent prosecutor’s office in the country.
