'Egregious' | Questions swirl after MD police officer convicted of assault gets new job, with same city

NEW CARROLLTON, Md. — A local police officer stepped down from his job after he broke the law while in uniform. So, how did he get a new job with the same Maryland city – roughly a week after he was sentenced by a judge?

That’s what some New Carrollton leaders want to know after they discovered former New Carrollton Police Sgt. Jeffery Harris would remain on the city’s payroll despite recent legal troubles.

Harris came under scrutiny after he and other officers with the New Carrollton Police Department arrested a man for burglary on June 19, 2021 at an apartment complex located on the 5400 block of 85th Avenue in New Carrollton.

In the incident, Harris could be seen placing cuffs around the suspect’s wrists and ankles in body worn camera footage provided to WUSA9 by the New Carrollton Police Department.

After the suspect repeatedly yells at authorities to let him go, Sgt. Harris lifts the suspect by his arms and places him into a New Carrollton Police Department cruiser.  

However, Harris breaks the protocol of his department by taking the suspect and placing him into the cruiser headfirst.  

Video shows the suspect’s head resting on the cruiser’s floor, while his feet kick in the air.

Local leaders, like Councilmember Brianna Urbina, said the incident disgusted them.

"The manner of how the assault took place is exactly how Freddie Gray died,” she said.

Baltimore resident Freddie Gray died after he was critically injured following his arrest in 2015. His death set off a period of unrest in the Maryland city.

The incident involving Harris ultimately caught the attention of the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Office. The office would later open an investigation into Harris’ actions and present evidence to a grand jury soon after.

In April 2022, Harris was charged with four misdemeanors, including second degree assault, reckless endangerment, and two counts of misconduct in office in connection to the arrest.

“[He] placed a handcuffed person into a vehicle upside down, that created a substantial risk of death and serious physical injury,” the indictment read.

New Carrollton Police Chief, Col. David Rice, elected to hand over the investigation into Harris’ arrest to an independent law enforcement agency, the Maryland-National Capital Park Police, Prince George's County Division, prior to the indictment.

Rice said it was important his department be as transparent as possible.

“Normally, a smaller investigation, like abusive language, things of that nature, we'll handle right here in house,” he said. “Something of that magnitude, use of force scale, we felt it was in the best interest of the city if we sent it out to a sister agency to have complete transparency.”

While Rice said he sought transparency regarding the handling of the Harris investigation, other city leaders appeared to be more interested placing the officer in a new role.

A jury found Harris guilty on three of the four charges brought against him in December, including second degree assault, reckless endangerment, and one count of misconduct in office.

Maryland court records show he was later sentenced on Jan. 26 to 45 days time served.

WUSA9 made a public records request to the City of New Carrollton that yielded hundreds of internal documents.

Harris wrote to Chief Rice on Feb. 3 his intent to resign from the police department following his conviction and subsequent sentencing for his role in the 2019 arrest.

However, that same letter included a surprise.

“I have been offered a new opportunity with the City of New Carrollton administrative office and have decided to take this offer,” the letter read.

Another email to all employees, from New Carrollton’s Human Resources Administrator Cynthia Johnson, later revealed Harris had accepted a job as the city’s “Fleet Services Manager.”

“Please stop by to congratulate and welcome him in his new role,” Johnson’s email read.

Urbina and New Carrollton Councilmember Katrina Dodro said the announcement of Harris’ new job took them by surprise.

“There are a lot of things that we need to be doing better in this country to allow people who have truly served all of their time to be able to go back to work,” she said. ”But not when you have committed that crime at the same place. You should not be getting rehired back again, even if it's a different position."

New Carrollton City Attorney Gabriel Christian wrote in an email to the city’s mayor, Phelecia Nembhard, that Harris should have been fired from his job as a police officer in December 2022. He added he had no idea Harris had received a new position with the city either.

“This revelation blindsided me that he was working at City Hall or in the City of New Carrollton administration,” Christian said.

Salary documents on New Carrollton’s website show Harris is eligible to make roughly the same amount of money he did as a police sergeant in his new position. However, Urbina says his hours are likely better now.

“[He] was essentially given a promotion,” she said.  

Both Urbina and Dodro said the Fleet Services Manager position, which is responsible for the oversight of more than 70 cars in the city, was not publicly posted before Harris got the job.  

WUSA9 looked through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, a digital archive, to see if any similar job listings had been previously posted to the city’s website. It found none. As of the publishing of this article, there are still no job listings related to fleet manager services posted on the website.

The councilmembers also said the position had not been financially planned for in New Carrollton’s city budget.

A budget for New Carrollton’s 2024 fiscal year, posted on the city’s website, showed the position was not funded for in 2023.

Just exactly who awarded Harris his new job remains a mystery.

Rice said he had nothing to do with it.

"I don’t have anything to do with the hiring of anything other than in the police department,” he said.

An email from the HR Administrator to the city attorney claimed New Carrollton’s Human Resources department authorized Harris’ hire after receiving a recommendation from a police captain.

“Mr. Harris’s hire to Fleet Manager was authorized by Human Resources at the recommendation of Captain Butler who stated that Mr. Harris did an excellent job with Dossier, which is a Fleet Management Program where he received certification,” the email read.

The same email also suggested Harris could find his way back onto the police force by taking the fleet manager job.

“It was recommended by Captain Butler that Mr. Harris resigns his position with the police department in order to accept a position with the City,” Johnson’s email read. “That would enable him to expunged (sic) his record within 3 years and maybe return to the police department.”

WUSA9 asked Rice about the contents of that email. He said it was a personnel issue he could not answer.

“It’s a question I really can’t answer,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

However, Dodro and Urbina said they believed someone else, not the HR administrator, put Harris into his new role.

They said they thought the mayor was the person who made the final call.

"I emphatically believe that she did,” Dodro said.

Urbina said the HR Administrator does not have the ability to hire people, without the mayor’s consent, per New Carrollton charter bylaws.

“The mayor has unilaterally been performing all of the hiring and firing in the months since we lost our City Administrator August 2022."

Part of the New Carrollton city charter, regarding the hiring responsibilities of the mayor, states:

“All office, department and agency heads shall serve at the pleasure of the Mayor and may be removed by the Mayor. All subordinate officers and employees of the offices, departments and agencies of the City government shall be appointed and removed by the Mayor in accordance with rules and regulations in any personnel policies that may be adopted by the Council.”

WUSA9 reached out to Mayor Nembhard, multiple times, for clarification as to whether she made the decision to place Harris in his new position. She initially told the station the information would be made apparent in its fulfillment of the station’s public records request.  

WUSA9 reached out to the mayor, again, when it determined the answer to its question as to who hired Harris was not clear. It has yet to hear back.

WUSA9 also has yet to receive a response for comment from Harris himself.

However, a family friend of Harris’ who claimed to get WUSA9’s contact information from the former New Carrollton officer said he felt Harris was being treated unfairly.  

The family friend, who contacted WUSA9 over the phone, would only identify himself as “Mr. David.”

“He’s a very good hearted, good natured, [and] has empathy for people,” Mr. David said. “I don’t’ know what was said by the other people in that city government, but I don’t like what I was hearing concerning him. He’s a young guy, raising his son as a solo parent. He is not as they paint him out to be.”

Harris had worked for the New Carrollton Police Department for 10 years prior to his resignation as sergeant in February.

Internal documents show Rice had considered Harris to be an “exemplary employee” up until an incident in April 2016 when the department learned he had gotten into a physical confrontation with a resident at his Howard County apartment complex while off-duty. Rice said Harris was suspended for 11 days because of that incident.

Then, a month later, Harris was investigated by the department for inadvertently striking a woman with a PhaZZer device during a traffic stop. He received additional training in response to that situation.

WUSA9 asked the councilmembers if they felt Harris was deserving of a second chance. Both Urbina and Dodro were adamant in their belief that the answer is no.

"I would say that the second chance definitely should not be awarded in this situation because we're talking about someone who committed misconduct in office and was convicted of misconduct in office."