Kevin Davis said at a news conference Friday afternoon that Dayten Ernest Harper shot at four police officers who ran in his direction after hearing gunfire Thursday night in West Baltimore.
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Reports indicated that at least one man with an assault rifle had shot at police and shattered a cruiser window.
The two detectives who fired on Harper, a 16-year veteran and a six-year veteran, are on routine administrative leave, while the two officers who did not fire are being treated as witnesses.
Davis said no evidence has surfaced that Thursday night’s assailant was connected to that threat or that he tried to lure officers to the apartment complex in order to shoot them.
“Based on the information we have right now, we do not believe this was an ambush”, Davis said.
They didn’t find any other suspects, but found the shooter’s firearm in a nearby tree line.
No officers or civilians were wounded during the shootout, CBS Baltimore says.
While the officers were in plainclothes, they were also wearing outer vests that were marked “police” on the front and back, he said.
The man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Smith said. When they went to investigate, the man turned the gun on them. The man then fired toward the officers, who were about 50 feet away, and two officers returned fire, police said.
The authorities are not yet sure what motivated the suspect to begin shooting, but the event certainly occurred during a time of great tension in the law enforcement community.
The incident late on Thursday came a week after five police officers were killed during a Dallas protest by a sniper who said he wanted to “kill white people” because of police killings of black people in the United States.
Investigators found the gun in a wooded area behind the apartment buildings. “We don’t know the answer to that yet, but that’s something that we’re trying to figure out”.
“We don’t have a victim”.
“There are a number of shell casings from this AR-15-style weapon on scene”, he said.
This isn’t the first police shooting in Baltimore involving someone armed with a semi-automatic rifle.
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The man was later found suffering from his injuries.
