Police fatally shot a man in West Baltimore who opened fire on cops Thursday night.
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Investigators say four plain clothed officers were in a vehicle near the 2300 block of Winchester Street when they heard gunfire. No officers were injured in the shooting and the two officers who fired their weapons were placed on administrative duties, Smith said.
Police said after Harper was shot at least once in the upper body, he fled into the apartment stairwell and threw the gun he was carrying into nearby woods at the rear of the building.
Although Davis did not identify the names of the Baltimore officers involved in the incident, he said the two policemen who exchanged fire with Harper are a 16-year and six-year veteran respectively.
“They actually heard gunfire”, Smith said.
Baltimore police officers responding to the sound of gunshots near an apartment building fatally shot a man who fired at them with an “AR-15-style” gun, authorities said early Friday. Police rendered aid on a second-floor platform.
It was the deadliest day for USA law enforcement since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Now investigators are wondering if the four police officers were the targets, and if the shooter was acting on some anti-cop motive, as in Dallas.
The shooting comes just a few days after police shot and killed two black men, one in Louisiana and another in Minnesota, angering members of Black Lives Matter and sparking protests nationwide.
The officers were wearing tactical vests, reports CBS Baltimore. No other shooter was found, and about 11 p.m., officials got Harper into an ambulance and took him to a hospital, where he died. The man ran through an open vestibule in one building and to the rear, discarding his weapon behind the building and then went back into the building, where he was apprehended.
“They are going to look at shell casings that came out of the gun that they encountered last night and compare those to any other shell casings found not only throughout the city but throughout the entire United States”, Cheplak said.
Officers locked down surrounding streets until they determined Harper acted alone.
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Baltimore Police tweeted this photo of a gun recovered from the scene of a police-involved shooting at an apartment complex. “We don’t know the answer to that yet, but that’s something that we’re trying to figure out”, Smith said. “No one has come forward and said, ‘Hey, I was being shot at'”.
