A video posted online is responsible for charges being leveled Wednesday against two Baltimore school cops, one of whom is seen in the brief clip smacking a student in the face and then kicking him in the back. The video, recorded March 1 by a fellow student at REACH Partnership School, shows an officer yelling at the 16-year-old student to "go the fuck home" and "get the fuck out of here." Anthony Spence, 44, is accused of second-degree assault and misconduct in office.
Another cop, Saverna Bias, 53, is charged with second-degree child abuse.
The video shows a second cop, allegedly Bias, standing idly by during the brief beating.
The pair have been placed on leave and were released on $50,000 bond Wednesday.
Spence's attorney said his client was under the impression that the boy was trespassing before the altercation occurred.
The boy, however, was a student at the school in the Clifton Park neighborhood. Enlarge / Officers Anthony Spence and Saverna Bias. The video is another example of alleged misconduct that most likely would have been swept under the rug without video evidence posted online. WJZ, the CBS affiliate in Baltimore, reported that city schools did not know about the video until being contacted by the TV station.
The pair was immediately suspended from duty after officials saw the video.
The two were charged a week later. The Baltimore Sun said that Spence was fired in 2003, along with another deputy, following a wrongful Taser attack on a construction worker mistaken for a bank robber.
The New York Daily News reported that Bias "was charged [in 2011] with second-degree assault for throwing a bottle of alcohol at a man she was breaking up with.
The man did not press charges and the case was eventually dropped." Marshall Goodwin, Baltimore schools' police chief, has also been placed on administrative leave following the incident. The officers maintain their innocence and are next scheduled to appear in Baltimore District Court on April 7.