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Crime & Justiceby Fern Shen11:20 pmAug 12, 20180

Baltimore police officer, captured in viral video beating a man, resigns

The officer who beat Dashawn McGrier is no longer with the BPD, but “this remains an active criminal investigation,” police said

Above: A video of Officer Arthur Williams beating a man in East Baltimore in 2018 went viral. He was charged with assault and allowed to resign. (YouTube)

In a terse late Sunday night statement, Baltimore police announced the resignation of the officer shown in a video repeatedly punching a man in the face and head on Saturday.

“The officer involved in yesterday’s incident is no longer with the Baltimore Police Department. Interim Commissioner [Gary] Tuggle has accepted his resignation,” police announced on Twitter and in a news release.

The agency still has not named the officer, but he has been identified as Arthur Williams by attorney Warren Brown, who is representing the 26-year-old man who was beaten, Dashawn McGrier.

The news release notes that the second officer on the scene, shown in the video watching the assault, but not stopping it, “remains on administrative duties.”

“This remains an active criminal investigation,” police also said.

NAACP’s Ifill: “This is not what reform looks like.”

Brown has said McGrier was taken to the hospital to be evaluated for possible facial, jaw and other fractures as a result of the incident.

Tuggle and Mayor Catherine Pugh said on Saturday that they found the video “disturbing,” and the city announced the suspension, with pay, of the officer.

But amid local and national outrage over the brutal beating, the Pugh administration was under pressure to take stronger action.

The spotlight was especially harsh because the city is under a 2017 federal consent decree to end discriminatory and unconstitutional policing tactics documented in a scathing Justice Department report.

It was a point made Saturday by NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill.

herrilyn Ifill @Sifill_LDF

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