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NEW YORK — <\/span>A New Jersey police sergeant has been charged with stealing $10,000 worth of cameras and other equipment from a photojournalist who had been injured covering tense protests<\/a> outside a Newark immigration jail.<\/p>\n Darryl Brown, a sergeant in the Essex County Prosecutor\u2019s Office, was caught with the missing items after the photojournalist used a geo-tracking device to trace her missing gear to his home, the state\u2019s attorney general said Thursday.<\/p>\n The journalist, Angelina Katsanis, was on assignment for The Associated Press at Delaney Hall<\/a> on Saturday night when she was struck in the knee by a wood beam during a clash between police and demonstrators.<\/p>\n As she hobbled to a medical tent to seek attention, Katsanis left behind her gear bag, which was marked with her name and contact information. When she was eventually allowed to return to the area \u2014 now in a wheelchair \u2014 the bag was gone.<\/p>\n \u201cI checked my Airtag and the bag was already on a highway pretty far away at that point,\u201d Katsanis recalled. \u201cRight away, I had a feeling it was the police.”<\/p>\n As Katsanis sought treatment in a nearby hospital, the Airtag pinged to a home in Sparta, New Jersey, which was listed as belonging to Brown, according to the attorney general’s office. The device was later recovered on the side of a road, miles away from the home where it was initially taken.<\/p>\n A subsequent review of Brown\u2019s body camera footage showed him \u201cinteracting\u201d with the bag at the protest location, according to the attorney general’s office. A search warrant executed at his home Wednesday turned up several of the missing items, some bearing Katsanis\u2019 name and phone number, the complaint said.<\/p>\n Information for Brown’s attorney was not immediately available. A message left at a phone number listed for Brown was not immediately returned. He faces charges of third-degree theft. He has been suspended without pay, according to the Essex County Prosecutor\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n Katsanis, who has training in covering hostile environments, said the incident had left her deeply shaken.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve thought a lot about how the officers are supposed to be there to uphold the law and protect us and protect property \u2014 and this is the exact opposite of that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n