Baltimore shooting leaves 2 officers wounded; suspect dead
A U.S. Marshals' shield leans against a tree near bullet markers outside an apartment complex at the scene of a shooting, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2020, in Baltimore. Two law enforcement officers with a fugitive task force were injured and a suspect died in the shooting, the U.S. Marshals Service said.[AP Photo/Julio Cortez]
A shooting in Baltimore on Wednesday left a former state corrections officer who had been under investigation dead and two fugitive task force officers wounded, authorities said.
One officer was shot in the leg and the other in the stomach, U.S. Marshals Service spokesman David Lutz said in an email. Both officers were assigned to the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force and were trying to serve a warrant for attempted murder, Lutz said. One of the officers is a Baltimore County detective and the other is a detective in the city of Baltimore. They were being treated at a hospital, but both were expected to survive.
Gov. Larry Hogan told a news conference that the suspect was a former state corrections official who had been under investigation. He said the task force officers were going after “a really bad guy.”
The Baltimore County Police Department said in a statement that “gunshots were fired” when task force officers confronted the suspect, and that the suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. The statement did not elaborate.
Neighbors at the scene of the shooting in the city’s Frankford neighborhood told The Sun that a suspect was “shooting back” at officers from inside an apartment building. A sheet at the scene covered what appeared to be a body.
The shooting comes as officials have increased the presence of federal law enforcement officers in the city to stymie gang-related activity and violent crime as a whole.
In December, the Justice Department announced a plan to increase the overall number of federal agents in Baltimore and add more officers to task forces. Months earlier, the department unveiled a task force focused on gun- and drug-related crime in the city.
Task force members, including agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, work from a shared location to increase coordination.
“This was a perfect example of that joint task force executing warrants on violent criminals,” Hogan said. "Unfortunately, it turned into a fairly tragic situation with wounded police officers.”
Baltimore has been plagued with gun violence for decades. The city ended 2019 with 348 homicides, its fifth year in a row with more than 300 slayings. As of Wednesday morning, authorities had recorded 40 homicides and 56 nonfatal shootings in 2020.