A former member of a specialized police unit at the center of a corruption investigation was given one of the most lenient forms of internal discipline yesterday for leaving a juvenile in rival gang territory, a department spokesman said.
Vicki Mengel, a member of a "flex squad" that has been replaced in the Southwestern District, was given "written counseling" by an internal disciplinary board, said Matt Jablow, a police spokesman.
In March 2004, Mengel dropped off a teenage boy in Southwest Baltimore, and the boy was assaulted. He returned to the neighborhood days later and shot a rival gang member in retaliation, according to police reports and court records.
At the time, Mengel wrote in a police report that the boy, a suspected drug dealer, had asked to be dropped off near his grandmother's house after police interviewed him.
Yesterday, the department found that Mengel did not make "proper notification" to supervisors that she had a juvenile in her custody. The department also concluded that the drop-off in gang territory was not intentional, Jablow said.
Mengel was part of a squad that was disbanded shortly after a woman alleged last month that three male officers were involved in raping her at the Southwestern District's station house.
Mengel has been suspended since November, when she was charged with gambling offenses in connection with a police raid of a high-stakes poker game in Northeast Baltimore. A trial is scheduled for Feb. 14.
