A Baltimore City police officer who is no stranger to controversy was arrested Friday and charged with assault and reckless endangerment in connection with a road rage incident in Harford County, Maryland State Police said Monday.
Officer Robert G. Cirello, 30, of Abingdon was driving in Bel Air about noon Friday when he and another driver got into an unspecified disagreement in traffic, state police said.
As the two vehicles reached Emmorton and Plumtree roads, the second driver said Cirello, who was off duty, flashed a gun, according to Sgt. Arthur Betts, a state police spokesman. The driver called police with a description of the vehicle.
Shortly afterward, officers located a vehicle matching that description at U.S. 1 and Route 24, found Cirello in possession of a handgun and made the arrest, Betts said. Cirello was booked at the Harford County Detention Center on two counts of first-degree assault, two of second-degree assault and two of reckless endangerment, police said.
He was released on $20,000 bond. Cirello did not immediately respond to phone messages left by The Baltimore Sun.
A New Jersey native and seven-year veteran of the city police, Cirello was the key figure in a 2006 incident in which four men said the officer improperly arrested them as they finished a game of pickup basketball in Patterson Park.
A jury agreed and awarded them a total of $1.85 million last May. The city ultimately settled the case for $320,000.
The men had said Cirello - in attempt to "prove he was King of the Park," according to court documents - drew his weapon in the process of arresting two of them, used pepper spray on the two and called for backup. Some spent weeks or months in jail awaiting trial before a jury acquitted all the men of assault charges.
Cirello asserted in a countersuit that the men converged on him in a hostile manner, one brandishing a knife, as he tried to evict them from the closed park. The jury rejected those counterclaims.
In a subsequent filing, the officer implied the men were responsible for an incident in which he was shot while patrolling the same park later that year.
As TheSun reported at the time, unknown assailants ambushed Cirello as he got out of his patrol car in Patterson Park on Sept. 7, 2006, shooting him twice in the chest at close range. Police said body armor saved him.
That part of Cirello's countersuit was dropped when the plaintiffs requested documents related to the shooting investigation.
A paramedic before becoming a police officer, Cirello was among those who aided victims at the World Trade Center towers in New York after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Cirello has been suspended from police duty pending the outcome of the criminal case and a department investigation, said Detective Nicole Monroe, a city police spokeswoman.
His preliminary hearing is set for June 4 in Harford County District Court.
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http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story/City-Officer-Charged-in-Road-Rage-Incident/rWwxh9RH1kyuvXg7yE1feQ.cspx
Officer Robert G. Cirello, 30, of Abingdon was driving in Bel Air about noon Friday when he and another driver got into an unspecified disagreement in traffic, state police said.
As the two vehicles reached Emmorton and Plumtree roads, the second driver said Cirello, who was off duty, flashed a gun, according to Sgt. Arthur Betts, a state police spokesman. The driver called police with a description of the vehicle.
Shortly afterward, officers located a vehicle matching that description at U.S. 1 and Route 24, found Cirello in possession of a handgun and made the arrest, Betts said. Cirello was booked at the Harford County Detention Center on two counts of first-degree assault, two of second-degree assault and two of reckless endangerment, police said.
He was released on $20,000 bond. Cirello did not immediately respond to phone messages left by The Baltimore Sun.
A New Jersey native and seven-year veteran of the city police, Cirello was the key figure in a 2006 incident in which four men said the officer improperly arrested them as they finished a game of pickup basketball in Patterson Park.
A jury agreed and awarded them a total of $1.85 million last May. The city ultimately settled the case for $320,000.
The men had said Cirello - in attempt to "prove he was King of the Park," according to court documents - drew his weapon in the process of arresting two of them, used pepper spray on the two and called for backup. Some spent weeks or months in jail awaiting trial before a jury acquitted all the men of assault charges.
Cirello asserted in a countersuit that the men converged on him in a hostile manner, one brandishing a knife, as he tried to evict them from the closed park. The jury rejected those counterclaims.
In a subsequent filing, the officer implied the men were responsible for an incident in which he was shot while patrolling the same park later that year.
As TheSun reported at the time, unknown assailants ambushed Cirello as he got out of his patrol car in Patterson Park on Sept. 7, 2006, shooting him twice in the chest at close range. Police said body armor saved him.
That part of Cirello's countersuit was dropped when the plaintiffs requested documents related to the shooting investigation.
A paramedic before becoming a police officer, Cirello was among those who aided victims at the World Trade Center towers in New York after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Cirello has been suspended from police duty pending the outcome of the criminal case and a department investigation, said Detective Nicole Monroe, a city police spokeswoman.
His preliminary hearing is set for June 4 in Harford County District Court.
_________________________
http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story/City-Officer-Charged-in-Road-Rage-Incident/rWwxh9RH1kyuvXg7yE1feQ.cspx
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