A Boston police sergeant was arrested on an assault and battery charge and has been ordered by a judge to stay away from his wife and children, the Norfolk district attorney’s office said.
Brian Dunford of Milton was arraigned in Quincy District Court Tuesday, according to David Traub, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office. Prosecutors requested bail be set at $5,000 but he was released on personal recognizance.
The alleged assault occurred in December, Traub said.
Prosecutors asked for Dunford to be required to wear a GPS monitoring device and to surrender his firearms. The judge denied both requests.
Dunford is due back in the Quincy court July 16 for a pretrial hearing.
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The charge against Dunford was first reported by WCVB-TV.
Sergeant Detective John Boyle, a Boston Police Department spokesman, said Dunford has been placed on administrative leave.
The charge against Dunford comes amid growing scrutiny of the Police Department for its handling of domestic charges against officers in the ranks.
Dunford’s record with the department includes multiple citizen complaints, including a use of force allegation in 2010 for which he was exonerated, and three others involving disrespectful treatment or allegations of “neglect of duty/unreasonable judgment,” which were closed by investigators, who could not prove or disprove the allegations, according to Globe reports.
Dunford was the subject of an internal affairs investigation stemming from a 2008 incident where he and his partner arrested a Black firefighter after a neighbor reported a fight between the firefighter and his girlfriend.
The couple denied they were fighting and said the officers attacked them. Internal affairs investigators concluded that Dunford “used poor judgment when testifying in court and failed to accurately document the type or amount of force used when placing a suspect under arrest.”
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Dunford, whose father was superintendent in chief at the time, received a five-day suspension but only was only required to serve two days if he stayed out of trouble for a year.
The firefighter won a $52,500 settlement.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com. Follow him @NickStoico.