As an update of the earlier node, on November 7, 2001, Brian Lee Sewell's alleged misconduct was reviewed by a
Baltimore police disciplinary panel. Sewell was adjudged to be
guilty of all charges, those being: making
false statements in his
police report and statement of
charges, of
misleading police and
prosecutors, and of general
misconduct in office. The panel issued a recommendation that the department
fire the seven-year veteran of the force, over his rather shocking act of arresting of an
innocent teenager for drug charges based on Sewell's knowledge from an
anonymous tip that the drugs were in a particular place in a particular park. What Sewell hadn't known was that this was a "police
sting" where
internal affairs planted fake drugs in the park and called in the anonymous tips to see if cops would act shadily toward them. The city, eager to be seen as serious about having no tolerance for police misconduct, carried out the
termination recommendation about a month and a few days afterwards.
A very similar case occurred two years later, early in 2003, this time the accused officer being thirteen-year veteran
Jacqueline Folio. Just a few months after the reporting of this Folio incident, Sewell was himself found dead, on August 11, 2003 at
Andrews Air Force Base where he was fulfilling his
commitment in the
Maryland Army National Guard. He was 34. His
death was described as an "
accident" and left at that. That December, officer Folio was acquitted of wrongdoing, and the city, under heavy
criticism from the Police
Union, suspended the practice of conducting "police stings" on the explanation that they really don't reveal anything about corruption at the departmental level.