WASHINGTON — A Prince George’s County police officer has been found guilty of assaulting a homeless woman.
Officer George Merkel saw the woman sleeping outside of a pawnshop in Lanham, Maryland, in September 2016 and asked her to move along.
“She was not moving fast enough for him, so he picked her up by her ears to get her standing to her feet,” John Erzen with the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Office told WTOP.
Merkel also hit the woman in the head and yelled obscenities at her, Erzen said.
“This whole incident was witnessed by two other county police officers who reported to their supervisors what happened,” Erzen added.
Merkel was suspended from his job in October 2016, and now a judge has found him guilty of second-degree assault and misconduct in office.
He faces up to 10 years in prison for the assault. For the misconduct, he could be sentenced to anything that’s not considered cruel and unusual.
Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 5, 2018.
