Frank Somerville, a former Bay Area television anchor, was arrested Monday evening on suspicion of causing serious bodily injury, Alameda County jail records show.
Somerville, 67, was booked into the Santa Rita Jail after an arrest at 6:53 p.m. in Oakland and remained in custody until he posted bail Tuesday morning, the records show. Jail records listed the charge as alleged battery causing serious bodily injury. The Oakland Police Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The arrest is the fourth for Somerville in nearly five years and comes about three years after his contract with KTVU, the Fox-affiliated Bay Area station where he worked for 31 years, expired. His contract ended in early 2022, shortly after he was involved in a December 2021 crash in Oakland.
In that incident, police said Somerville rear-ended another vehicle a few blocks from his home in Uptown Oakland; the collision forced the other car into a pole. The other driver was taken to a hospital. Authorities arrested Somerville at the scene on suspicion of driving under the influence and a breathalyzer test later showed a blood-alcohol level of .24, about three times the legal limit, according to KRON4. He pleaded no contest to the DUI charge in August 2022, was ordered to attend DUI classes and was placed on three years of probation that ended this year.
Somerville faced additional legal troubles in June 2023 when he was arrested twice in the span of nine hours after confrontations with family members at a Berkeley residence, according to local reports. Police said he was taken into custody at the Berkeley home at 6:36 p.m. after an alleged fight with a relative, and was arrested again at 3:26 a.m. after a separate physical altercation with a male family member.
KTVU suspended Somerville twice in 2021, once after viewers and station staff flagged slurred speech during a newscast and once following a dispute over coverage of the Gabby Petito case. Reports said Somerville, who has a Black daughter, had argued that the station should include a disclaimer noting that media coverage of missing persons cases often focuses more on white women than on women of color.
News accounts and public records show a pattern of legal encounters in recent years that have frequently involved alcohol. Station officials declined to comment when his contract was not renewed in early 2022; Somerville has not issued a public statement about the latest arrest.
The Alameda County booking shows the latest charge but provides limited details about the circumstances of the alleged incident. Prosecutors and the Oakland Police Department will determine whether to file formal charges and what those charges will be. If charged, Somerville will be entitled to enter a plea and to contest the allegations in court.
Somerville had been a visible presence on Bay Area television for decades, anchoring at KTVU for more than three decades before his departures and suspensions in 2021 and the end of his contract in 2022. The current arrest adds to a string of incidents that have brought renewed attention to his post-anchoring life and legal challenges.