Baltimore police charged after viral video showed cop slapping and kicking teen
Two Baltimore school police officers have been charged with assault after their violent encounter with a student was caught on camera.
One of the officers was seen swearing at, slapping and kicking an unidentified 16-year-old student outside a school while the second officer looked on. A bystander captured the March 1 incident on a cellphone pointed over his shoulder.
City officials opened a criminal investigation into the violent encounter last week after the 8-second clip of the assault began to spread online.
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Officers Anthony Spence, 44, and Saverna Bias, 53, turned themselves in on Tuesday night, Baltimore city police said in a statement Wednesday morning.
Both officers were charged with second-degree assault and misconduct in office. Spence, who is seen on the video as the main assailant, was also charged with second-degree child abuse.
A witness told investigators that Bias egged on the attack and told Spence: "You need to smack him because he's got too much mouth," according to the Baltimore Sun, citing charging documents.
The two were released later on Wednesday, each on $50,000 bail.
Baltimore City School Police Department said it will continue an internal investigation into the incident, which took place at REACH Partnership School. The school district has its own police force separate from city police.
"Right now, I'm the bad guy," officer Spence said.
Spence acknowledged in a telephone conversation with The Associated Press on Friday that he was the subject of a criminal investigation and said he wouldn't discuss the matter because the news media would "twist" the story.
"Right now, I'm the bad guy," officer Spence said.
Spence's attorney, Mike Davey, said his client believed the boy was trespassing on school grounds.
School officials initially said officers responded to a reported intruder, and that the young man in the video wasn't a REACH student. On Friday, the school system said in a statement that he is "believed to be a student on the school's roster," as asserted by his lawyer, Lauren Geisser. Geisser has said he's in 10th grade.
On Monday, Baltimore City Schools CEO Gregory Thornton met with parents to discuss the video and said he will review training and selection of school police officers.
Additional information from the Associated Press.
Megan Specia was Mashable's Assistant Real-Time News Editor and joined the team in September 2014. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism & Mass Communications from the University of New Hampshire after growing up in the Jersey 'burbs. She made her way to New York via a four year stopover in Dublin. Megan previously worked as a journalist and editor at Storyful in both Dublin and New York. Before all of that, though, her claim to fame was as head cake arranger and purveyor of all things sweet at Queen of Tarts cafe in Dublin, where she developed a serious addiction to macarons.
