And this came up in in the comments on Baltimore Sun’s blog:
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Comment by: Baltimore Eagle
While I agree that firing the officer seems harsh on the surface, I know that Officer Rivieri had a pattern of overreacting that went much further than scolding a few “bratty” kids. There were a few incidents that I know of, one included running me off my bike in the service road near the Power Plant. I road onto the sidewalk to avoid him as he drove a vehicle at high speed down the bicycle lane, I reentered the bike lane after he passed and was shocked to see him in reverse chasing after me. He wedged my bike between his vehicle and the curb, jumped out, produced a club and shouted threats at me and actually pulled a can a mace out.
There was no provocation from me as I only stood there in shock, then backed away from him as he threatened me, apparently my offense was riding on the sidewalk.
Before you turn on the boys and their parents, “Dude,” “Man,” “Officer” are inconsequential…
I said matter of factly, “I rode onto the sidewalk because you were driving in the bike lane” and that just made matters worse.
There was an incident report filed and I eventually spoke to Internal Affairs.
If you can remember there were a few other videos of him exhibiting abusive behavior. Baltimore is of course not a easy job for police, I cut officers a lot of slack but provoking people is NOT helpful , he probably needed to be on desk duty, but it is also possible that he behaved that way towards his bosses and they had enough.
In short there’s more to this than the guy having just one bad day.
https://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/blog/2010/08/baltimore_cop_who_berated_skat.htmloldId.20100826113847255