BALTIMORE — A Baltimore Police officer was ambushed and shot while sitting in a patrol vehicle early Thursday in Curtis Bay, the police commissioner said.
At a briefing outside Maryland Shock Trauma, Dr. Thomas Scalea said the officer was shot multiple times and was on life support.
Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said the officer was on-duty but not responding to a call around 1:30 a.m. in the 4400 block of Pennington Avenue when the shooter approached from behind and opened fire. It was not clear how that information had been gleaned.
“We have a coward on the loose in Baltimore that we must and will find,” Mayor Brandon Scott said.
The officer, who was not identified by name or even gender, was found by other officers after their vehicle accelerated and crashed. A video posted to social media of the apparent aftermath showed a patrol car on a playground at Curtis Bay Park.
Harrison said police had little information and were pleading with the public for help.
He said that he and Scott had met with the officer’s family, “who are, like us, obviously angry, confused, in search of answers, and have an expectation that we will find who did this and hold one or as many people responsible for this as possible,” Harrison said.
Officials pleaded with members of the public to provide tips.
“We don’t give a damn how we get it,” Scott said.
In the Instagram video depicting the immediate aftermath, the man filming urges others not to call police to report the shooting and says police harass people in his community.
“Don’t call the police, don’t,” he says.
“We can’t let him [sic] die,” a woman responds.
Outside Shock Trauma, Council President Nick Mosby spoke of being angry about the shooting.
“There’s been a lot of divisive talk over the past several years around police, around connecting with our community, around violence. But tonight, this is reality,” Mosby said. “The reality is, men and women do their best job to put on Baltimore Police Department uniforms and go to protect our citizens. ... We should all take this very personally.
“I ask the citizens of Baltimore, if you do not have information [that could solve the case], to just pray.”
Maryland state Senate President Bill Ferguson, who represents Curtis Bay, said in an interview on WBAL Radio Thursday morning that the shooting is further evidence that there needs to be a rethinking of the strategies for combating violence in Baltimore. And that includes having state and city leaders working together, rather than pointing fingers and casting blame.
”Things are broken and the trajectory that we are on is totally unsustainable,” Ferguson said. “It’s time to hit reset, and something has to give.”
Ferguson suggested that the governor, mayor, police commissioner, state’s attorney and U.S. attorney all need to redouble their efforts to work together to help the city.
”As we move into the new year, the trajectory has to change,” the Baltimore Democrat said. Ferguson said there needs to be a balance between making arrests and prosecuting criminals and investing in communities to prevent the root causes of crime.
Ferguson said he visited the Southern District police station early Thursday morning, where officers were “largely in shock.”
Kevin Kreamer, who lives across the street from Curtis Bay Park, said he heard a loud crash around 2 a.m. Now, he knows it was the officer’s patrol vehicle, pummeling through a chain link fence and careening over a ledge toward the park’s playground.
Thursday morning, a car mirror and other debris were scattered below the park’s jungle gym, together with an instruction sheet for a neck brace. Across the street, broken glass littered the parking lot beside the Food Mart shop.
”It’s terrible,” Kreamer said. “My kids play at this park sometimes.”
Kreamer said one police officer knocked on his door at about 2:30 a.m., asking what he and his family had heard. His wife heard several gun shots, Kreamer said, perhaps four or five.
At that time, about 30 police cars were in the neighborhood, blocking off the perimeter of the park. But around daybreak, they were gone, he said.
By midmorning, small groups of officers and cadets, who’d arrived in vans, had begun searching the neighborhoods surrounding Pennington Avenue for security cameras. One by one, they knocked on the doors of homes with cameras perched on windowsills and doorbells, seeking any clues about the crime.
Baltimore Sun reporters Jessica Anderson and Pamela Wood contributed to this report.
