A Baltimore City police officer has been indicted in Baltimore County on misdemeanor charges of second-degree assault and reckless endangerment, the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s office said.

Officer William S. Kern, 46, allegedly shot a University of Maryland Baltimore police trainee in the head during a training exercise at the Rosewood Center in Owings Mills in February. The grand jury indictment identifies the trainee as Raymond Northern Gray.

Gray was critically injured.

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If Kern is convicted, the assault charge could carry up to 10 years in prison; the maximum sentence for reckless endangerment is five years, according to the state’s attorney’s office.

In a statement, the office said an arrest warrant has been issued for Kern, who has been with the Baltimore Police Department since Nov. 7, 1994. The state’s attorney’s office has asked Baltimore City police to “suspend any Internal Affairs’ investigation until the completion of the criminal case,” the statement reads.

On Tuesday, Feb. 12, around 2:30 p.m. Gray was shot in the front of the headallegedly by Kern during a training exercise at facility in Owings Mills, where the Baltimore Police Department trains various law enforcement agencies.

The Baltimore Sun reported that top Baltimore police commanders, including the director of the training academy, did not know training exercises were happening in Owings Mills that day.

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If I was driving 25mph over the speed limit, I’d be charged with reckless endangerment. Yet, they can shoot people in the head and get the same charge.

To make matters worse, the top Baltimore police commanders and training directors not knowing that a training exercise was being conducted, with live firearms, is extremely negligent. It is simply unacceptable.

It’s also worth noting that Maryland has been in the news a lot lately over police misconduct. You guys out there need to contact your elected officials and fix these problems. Police accountability is what you need.

The city police officer who was fired for mistakenly killing a fellow officer during a 2004 shootout will be eligible in June for a $36,000-a-year city pension, records show.

James A. Palange, 39, qualifies for the pension because he remained on paid suspension for six years while he appealed the firing, said Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer and Police Chief William M. Heim.

Officers need 12 years to be vested. Palange had 13, counting the suspension time.

Neither Heim nor Spencer would say what took so long, noting that it’s a personnel matter.

Palange had taken his 2005 firing to arbitration.

Heim would say only that the pension deal is not the result of arbitration, but the result of a June 2011 settlement following negotiations between the city and the Fraternal Order of Police. That settlement had not been previously disclosed.

Neither Palange nor the FOP was available for comment.

Palange has worked full time for Mohnton since 2007, even though he was on the city payroll until July 2011.

In mid-2010, he was getting about $100,000 a year in city salary and benefits such as health care insurance.

Heim said Palange will get the pension check, but not the health care benefits such as medical and prescription insurance that other police retirees get.

His check will be based on 18 years of service time: seven years working for the city; six years while on paid suspension during the appeal; and five years of so-called street time that retiring city officers are allowed to buy even though they hadn’t worked those years.

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A former Bella Vista police officer who served jail time after shooting a suspect to death was sworn in as a police chief Monday night.

When Coleman Brackney took over as Sulphur Springs’ chief, it was the first time Coleman put on a police uniform since he was fired from the Bella Vista Police Department in 2010. Coleman was convicted that year of negligent homicide and served about one month in jail.

Although Fry testified he only remembered stunning Boucher three times, information downloaded from the device showed he used it six times in a 75-second span.

A third officer, Bradley Walker, testified that when he arrived at the scene, he saw McCormick hit a motionless Boucher with the baton about five times and saw Fry use his stun gun on him.

The officers handcuffed Boucher, patted him down and turned him over, only to find that he wasn’t breathing and his face was covered in blood. Boucher was dead minutes later despite attempts to revive him.

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