Well this won't be good for the historically frosty relationship between the Baltimore Police Department and city State's Attorney's Office. An officer assigned to the Southwest District spent a night in jail Monday after a Circuit Court judge issued a "material witness" warrant against the woman - at the request of the city's State's Attorney's Office - when she didn't appear for a gun trial that afternoon.
Prosecutors called Victoria Wingfield's testimony "crucial" in fighting a defense motion to suppress certain information. As for the trial itself, the officer was not called as a witness for the prosecution but did get on the stand eventually - as a defense witness. A police spokesman called the arrest a "literally extraordinary event." Officers we talked to said she had no history of missing appearances and expressed concern that putting an active duty officer in jail exposes them to significant danger.
UPDATE: The State's Attorney's Office announced that the defendant in the case in question, 35-year-old Kinte Johnson of Crofton, was convicted this afternoon of prohibited possession of an unregulated firearm and was sentenced to five years without the possibility of parole.