Baltimore City Police Sgt. Posts Bail After Being Arrested For Assault
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A Baltimore Police sergeant is out on bond Friday and suspended from the force after being arrested for assault
Sergeant Ethan Newberg is a 24-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department. Charging documents paint a picture of Newberg with a hot temper, arrested a man last week without cause.
In a late-night press conference Thursday, BPD commissioner Michael Harrison announced the arrest of one of his own.
"...whose actions were not just wrong, but deeply disturbing and illegal," Harrison said.
Newberg is charged with false imprisonment, second-degree assault and misconduct in office, stemming from a warrant check last week.
"The commissioner was appropriate in taking swift action to do what he did," said Mayor Jack Young.
That warrant check happened near the Westside Shopping Center in Southwest Baltimore. It happened on Ashton Street when Sgt. Newberg claimed a bystander got combative and aggressive.
"The body-worn camera that I reviewed shows a much different story," Harrison said.
"I'm really surprised he actually had it turned on," Spider said.
Harrison said the bystander was calm, when he said video shows Newberg chased the man down and grabbed him before another officer tackled him.
Charging documents allege Newberg told the man "to take his charge like a man,"
"I can understand that cops got a job to do, but he ain't got no business doing some crap like that," Spider said.
"I'm grateful to the new police commissioner who has expeditiously ensured that one standard of justice is applied," said Baltimore States' Attorney Marilyn Mosby.
"Many of our police officers who are going to work putting their lives on the line every day and doing the right thing by our residents every day find it frustrating as well because it makes their work even that much harder. It is making our compliance with the consent decree that much harder," Harrison said.
Newberg is the second city officer in eight days to be charged with misconduct.
On the day Newberg was accused of assault, Officer Michael O'Sullivan was arrested and charged with perjury and misconduct in office in a 2018 incident.
Newberg was Baltimore City's second-highest paid employee last year. City records show he made $243,000.
"No one person should ever make that amount in overtime. That's more than I make as mayor," Mayor Young said.
The commissioner announced Newberg has been suspended without pay.
On the last page of the charging documents, another officer approached Newberg to tell him to "relax,"
Newberg ordered him to leave the scene and called him a "kumbaya officer,"
Newberg's court date is set for July 9 at the district court on Patapsco Avenue.