An Anne Arundel County Police officer and his wife are facing domestic violence charges in Baltimore after authorities say they assaulted each other during a dispute over money.

Charnika Green, 34, called 911 shortly after noon on Aug. 19 to report that her husband, Tyrell Thomas, 32, was acting extreme and that she wished to obtain a restraining order against him. The Baltimore woman said she was going through a divorce and that a day prior her husband of 15 years had slashed her tires, spit in her face and took some of her child’s belongings.

When asked whether anyone in the household had access to firearms, Green told authorities that her husband is an Anne Arundel County Police officer. Northeast District officers responded to the 1500 block of Wadsworth Way and, after interviewing the estranged spouses and viewing text messages corroborating the events, arrested them both.

Thomas, a three-year veteran of the county Police Department assigned to the Bureau of Community Services, is charged with second-degree assault. He has been suspended with pay pending an investigation, Anne Arundel officials said in a statement Monday.

Meanwhile, authorities have also charged Green with three counts related to domestic violence. She is facing first- and second-degree assault as well as a weapons charge for striking Thomas with a paper towel holder after he spit in her face and was walking away. Thomas was treated for an injury at MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital where he received stitches, charging documents state.

Attorneys representing Thomas and Green were not yet listed in court records Monday afternoon.

Building a case could pose a challenge for the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, which initially withheld Thomas and Green’s names from one another’s charging documents. The office has a policy of redacting the names of domestic violence victims, even those who face charges in connection to the same incident, said spokesperson Emily Witty in an email Monday.

Investigators say the domestic altercation began Aug. 18 with Thomas claiming that Green owed him $700. Charging documents for both individuals say the argument began with Thomas repeatedly calling and texting Green and spanned hours, eventually intensifying around 8:50 p.m. at the family home in Northeast Baltimore.

Green told investigators Thomas had taken back-to-school items she bought for her children, called her a “fat bitch” and told her he planned to return the kids’ belongings to the store in order to get the money back.

Thomas then spit in his wife’s face, after which Green struck him with a silver plastic paper towel holder, cutting his nose. Green told investigators that Thomas was walking out the door when she threw the object, which she said she was not expecting to hit his face, while her son watched from a nearby stairway.

When the county police officer left the house to seek medical treatment, Green took her children to stay overnight with their football coaches because she did not want them witnessing their parents fighting. She returned briefly around midnight to the home to collect some clothes for her kids and soon noticed Thomas following her in his 2019 white Dodge Durango SXT to the place where one of her sons was staying.

Green said she placed a call to warn those in the house before fleeing in her vehicle down an alley. She eventually returned to her residence on Wadsworth Way, where Thomas used an unknown object to flatten her tires to the rim and told her to use the $700 to fix them. He later told her, “This is what you get when you do this,” pulling down the bandages around his nose.

Later in the day, another argument broke out between the two at the family home. Green told authorities that Thomas knocked items off her countertop, prompting her to call 911. She also told investigators that the emergency calls dispatcher could hear Thomas yelling in the background and that a neighbor had heard and called to check on her.

Thomas has acknowledged to investigators that he punctured his wife’s tires in anger over the unpaid $700. He initially claimed he cut his nose by accident while removing his license plate, but later said he was injured when Green threw the paper towel holder at him just after he spit in her face.

Following the arrests, detectives served a search warrant on the family home where Thomas and Green still live together amid their divorce while sleeping in separate rooms. They recovered the paper towel rack and some broken shards of glass and pottery from a trash can in the kitchen. Crime scene technicians also documented blood in areas of the house.

lillian.reed@thebaltimorebanner.com