A former California television news anchor was arrested twice in a span of about nine hours this week after allegedly getting into a fight with his brother at a family member’s home and then later returning to look for his cellphone, reports say.
Frank Somerville, 65, is now facing multiple charges following the pair of incidents at a home in Berkeley, according to The Berkeley Scanner.
The website reported that police were first called to the home around 6:30 p.m. Monday for a situation involving the ex-KTVU anchor.
Somerville’s younger brother Mark told The Berkeley Scanner that Frank showed up angry and threatened their 91-year-old father before he asked him to leave. Mark reportedly said he then got into a physical altercation with Frank and restrained him until officers arrived.
“Police contacted all involved parties and determined that Somerville was intoxicated and showed up regarding ongoing family issues at the residence,” a Berkeley police spokesperson told SFGate. “When asked by family, Somerville was told to leave the property but refused to leave. Somerville threatened the victim, which led to a physical altercation.”
Mark sustained facial injuries in the fight, while Frank was taken into custody on suspicion of criminal threats, battery, public intoxication and probation violation, The Berkeley Scanner reported, citing community members at the scene and police.
Frank Somerville then reportedly posted his $32,500 bail and was released from the Berkeley Jail around 2:20 a.m. the next morning.
About an hour later, police received a call from the same property where Frank allegedly had been Monday night.
Police told The Berkeley Scanner that Frank Somerville went back there to get his car, then returned again to find his missing cellphone from the night prior.
“In an effort to retrieve his property, Somerville continued ringing the doorbell until the victim spoke with him,” police also told SFGate.
When officers showed up the second time, Frank Somerville was found in his car, “displayed objective signs and symptoms of public intoxication and was witnessed driving under the influence of alcohol,” The Berkeley Scanner reported, citing law enforcement.
He was arrested on suspicion of DUI and a probation violation and is since being held in the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on a $15,000 bail, the website added.
Frank Somerville, in an email Tuesday afternoon, told The Berkeley Scanner that he “wasn’t drunk” when he was taken into custody Monday evening.
It is not the first time Somerville has had a run-in with police. In December 2021, he was arrested for a DUI crash.
“I got trashed,” Somerville told KRON4 about the incident earlier this year. “I mean there’s no other way to say it. I got trashed in my apartment, and I wanted to go to Taco Bell, which is two and a half blocks away from where I live. I made the idiotic decision to drive. I had absolutely no business at all to drive — at all.”
Somerville, according to the station, had rear-ended another car in an incident caught on video.
“I have absolutely no recollection of the accident,” he later told KRON4, adding that his blood alcohol content was 0.24% at the time of the incident, three times higher than California’s legal limit of 0.08%.
Somerville started at KTVU in 1991 before his departure last year.
Just another scumbag mainstream media journo.
Like it says in the Bible these Antichrist demons will turn against themselves in the end of times