A veteran Baltimore Police sergeant criminally charged with forcibly arresting a bystander without justification in May has now been indicted on 32 additional counts of false imprisonment, assault and misconduct in office based on a “pattern and practice of harassment and intimidation” that prosecutors identified by viewing past body-camera footage, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced Thursday.
The indictment, handed down by a grand jury, alleges that Sgt. Ethan Newberg, 49, “did knowingly, intentionally, and unlawfully harass, detain and assault citizens who were engaged in lawful conduct for the improper purposes of dominating, intimidating and instilling fear” in them between July 2018 and May of this year.
Newberg ignored his training as a police officer and the policies of the department, according to the indictment, and repeatedly “stopped, accosted, intimidated, harassed and threatened” people without probable cause in at least nine separate incidents.
“Several of Newberg’s unlawful detentions and assaults occurred as a direct result of citizens sitting or standing idly nearby [as] Newberg was conducting other police business, causing no disturbance nor creating any threat to Newberg or his colleagues; several occurred as citizens openly, from a distance, called into question what Newberg was doing to or with another citizen; others occurred when citizens attempted to video record what Newberg was doing to or with another citizen,” the indictment states.