Baltimore Officer avoids felony child abuse charges for assaulting a teenager
A Baltimore police officer who was caught on a viral video slapping and kicking a teenager and was then subsequently charged with second-degree felony child abuse, second-degree assault, and misconduct in office has avoided the felony child abuse charges. The original video depicts one Baltimore school police officer, Saverna Bias, looking on as officer Anthony Spence curses, hits and kicks a sixteen-year old student at REACH Partnership School.
Spence and Bias now both face the lesser misdemeanor charges of assault and misconduct in office. The Baltimore state’s attorney’s office dropped the second-degree child abuse charges against Spence, deeming them not “appropriate.”
“The charges in these cases, like in all cases reflect our subsequent investigation and our obligation to apply the facts to the law,” said spokeswoman Rochelle Ritchie in an official statement, “After obtaining all the facts and analyzing them based on Maryland case law, Pope v. State, as well as the applicable criminal statute, we have determined the defendants in these cases did not have temporary care of custody of the victim, therefore the child abuse charges are not appropriate.”
