A Baltimore police officer has been suspended from the force after his arrest on charges that he raped his wife at gunpoint during an argument over her marital infidelity, according to court charging documents.
The 37-year-old officer, an Iraq war veteran, is charged with felonies that include rape, assault and using a handgun in the commission of a violent crime. The officer, whom The Baltimore Sun is not naming to shield the woman's identity, is being held at the Baltimore City Detention Center on $500,000 bail.
The officer joined the Police Department in February 2001 and was most recently assigned to the Special Operations Section.
The officer's attorney, Shaun Owens, declined to comment on the case.
On Jan. 11, the woman told police that during an argument Oct. 6 in their Northeast Baltimore home over an affair, her husband walked over to the bed and removed a black semiautomatic handgun from beneath one of the pillows. The suspect then walked to the closet, removed a second black semiautomatic handgun and placed it on the bed.
While waving a handgun, the man said, "Tell me what's going on," according to the charging documents. "The victim did not respond to the suspect's question. The suspect then stated to the victim, 'I'm only giving you two options today. I'm going to shoot you and then kill myself, or you can shoot me and I'll tell the police that it was self-defense.' "
The court documents allege that the officer raped his wife while holding a gun to her head and repeatedly refused to stop. The documents say he repeated his threats and raped her again an hour later. She told police that her husband ordered her to pick up the gun, and when she refused, said: "I'm going to keep on doing it over and over until you get angry enough to pick up the gun."
The charging documents say he eventually let her leave to pick up their children at school.