On Friday, Prince George’s County Police Officer Jenchesky Santiago was sentenced to five years in prison for an incident in 2014 in which he put a gun to a black suspect’s head and shoved it down the suspect’s mouth.
Santiago was sentenced after being convicted in December of misconduct in office and of first- and second-degree assault.
However, Santiago seems not to have any remorse for his actions, if a recording of a call he made from the jailhouse to his mother is to be believed.
“If anything, they should be saying ‘Sorry’ to me, because all he wanted was a payday,” he said during the call, and it was this conversation that prosecutors pointed to in order to show that Santiago was not remorseful and was in fact dangerous.
The incident for which Santiago was sentenced occurred in May of 2014. Santiago pulled William Cunningham over outside his own house, insisting that Cunningham was illegally parked. Although Cunningham explained that he lived in the house and attempted to go inside, Santiago ordered him back to the car, pointed his gun at Cunningham’s head and mouth.
“I dare you to [expletive] fight me, son,” Santiago said.
Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Dwight D. Jackson said of Santiago’s actions that they were harmful to police everywhere.
“Perhaps you were bored or perhaps you wanted to show off,” Jackson said. “You degraded that man.”
Below is local coverage from when the incident originally took place.
