The Baltimore police sergeant who pursued and ran over a teenager with his patrol car in 2021 – costing taxpayers $400,000 to settle the victim’s lawsuit today – was involved in another disciplinary case that resulted in his suspension 18 months ago.

Deputy Solicitor Stephen Salsbury confirmed to the Board of Estimates that the unnamed officer – which The Brew identified through court records as Steven M. Reed – was suspended with pay in January 2025 regarding another case of allegedly improper conduct.

That means that Reed received his more than $100,000-a-year base salary while his case remained unresolved among a backlog of more than 800 police disciplinary cases.

It further means that Reed remained on active duty between June 2021, when he ran over a 16 year old suspected of carjacking, and January 2025. Over that 3½-year period, he was one of the highest earners of police overtime, picking up $115,000 in extra pay in fiscal 2024 alone, according to city salary records.

Altogether, Reed received more than $700,000 since he ran over Devonte Jett with his Ford Explorer police cruiser on June 14, 2021, leaving the teenager unconscious with lung and pelvis injuries.

Seriously Backlogged

Salsbury today skirted around Reed’s disciplinary problems as Comptroller Bill Henry and City Council President Zeke Cohen fretted about the backlog of disciplinary cases. (Mayor Brandon Scott was absent.)

Henry expressed concern that for “at least a year and a half, we’ve been paying his salary and having to pay additional overtime to have other officers to cover his spot.”

Because no police representative was present at the meeting, many specific questions were not directly answered. Also left unmentioned was the second officer involved in the lawsuit, Brandon Butt.

• Baltimore to pay $400,000 to a man chased and run over by police car (6/30/26)

Officer Butt pointed his handgun at the fleeing teenager, according to video footage taken by a police helicopter, and was accused of helping other officers plant a BB gun in the teen’s pants.

The lawsuit accused Butt of roughly handcuffing and sitting upright the comatose teenager, never calling for medical assistance. (The Foxtrot helicopter operator called for assistance, and Jett was eventually transported to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center for treatment.)

Butt remains on active duty with full pay, according to the police department. Between fiscal 2022 and 2024, he earned $364,000 in salary and overtime. His pay for FY25 and 26 is not publicly available.

Salsbury repeatedly assured the board that the backlog of police disciplinary cases, dating back many years, would eventually be cleared by the administrative trial boards.

“There is no question that this is a major priority for us to try to move through these cases more quickly,” he said. “We have put in for additional resources. But the biggest bottleneck, honestly, it’s the availability of individuals who have to serve on these boards.”

A trial board consists of a retired circuit court or administrative law judge, an equal-rank police officer and a member of the public approved by the Police Accountability Board.

In the last six months, the trial boards have heard 60 cases, up from 20 cases heard in 2025, Salsbury said. “The work that has been made, the improvement and progress made, is significant, and we’re very proud, the lawyers in the trenches, for doing this.”

Asked by Henry if the number of backlogged cases was growing or decreasing, Salsbury did not answer except to say he was “optimistic and confident” that the backlog can be overcome, so that the city’s consent decree, entered into with the U.S. Justice Department after the 2015 police custody death of Freddie Gray, can be lifted.

According to the Baltimore Sun, over 500 cases were pending at the start of December 2025.

Five months later, on April 23, 2026, Police Commissioner Richard Worley told U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar that there were 625 pending cases involving 768 officers.

More recently, the Police Accountability Board was told there were about 700 cases, as compared to the 800-plus cases cited by Salsbury today. He said that roughly half of the cases involve relatively minor infractions, such as an officer failing to activate their body camera on time.