Attorney General identifies man who died in Greenbelt police custody

Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown’s Independent Investigations Division identified Michael MacDougall as the man who died in Greenbelt police custody and named the Greenbelt Police Department officer involved in the case. The death occurred in Greenbelt, in Prince George’s County, on July 1, 2026.

WUSA9 identified MacDougall as a 40-year-old man who became unresponsive and died in police custody after a crash in Greenbelt. Brown’s office had already delayed the release of the decedent’s name and the officer’s name while the independent investigation remained active.

The Greenbelt Police Department posted a press release on July 2, 2026, about the Attorney General’s investigation. A search-result snippet tied to that release indicated United States Park Police had detained the driver before Greenbelt officers arrived, placing the initial encounter under multiple law-enforcement agencies and leaving open key questions about how the custody transfer unfolded.

Maryland’s Independent Investigations Division, part of the Office of the Attorney General, investigates police-involved incidents that result in death or injuries likely to result in death. The division’s operating procedures call for on-scene investigation, collection of physical evidence, interviews with officers and civilian witnesses, and continued evidence analysis before the office communicates with the state’s attorney. In cases where the attorney general finds sufficient grounds for prosecution, the IID has exclusive authority to prosecute the offense.

For Prince George’s County residents, that means Greenbelt police are not the lead investigators in the death itself, even though the department can still cooperate with the state inquiry and release information about its own response. The IID controls the criminal review, while the local department remains part of the factual record through its officers, body-camera footage, dispatch logs and any internal administrative steps it may take.

The public still does not have a full accounting of the crash, the moments before MacDougall became unresponsive, or the role each agency played after the driver was detained. Those details are typically sorted through the IID process before any declination report, prosecution decision or further public finding is released. Maryland’s attorney general has said the division was created to provide statewide oversight of police-involved deaths, and its work in Greenbelt now becomes the main path for determining whether the case closes with no charges or moves toward a prosecutorial review.