By Cassidy Jensen
Source Baltimore Sun
Baltimore Police officials say a police officer shot and killed a man who attacked a woman while holding a knife at the border of Harlem Park and Sandtown-Winchester in West Baltimore on Sunday afternoon.
Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said officers responded at about 3:40 p.m. to the intersection of Lafayette and North Fulton avenues for a report of a man armed with a knife assaulting a woman who was on the ground.
Harrison said body camera video shows that an officer driving a police cruiser exited his car while calling for backup, then ordered the man to drop the knife and get onto the ground. The man rolled over on top of the woman, Harrison said.
“The suspect placed himself what appears to be on top of the female while armed with a very large knife,” Harrison said. The officer fired multiple times at the man, who rolled off the woman. Police took the knife and rendered medical aid to the man, Harrison said.
Medics took the man to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Harrison said. He said the woman was not stabbed or shot, and was in good condition. Police spokeswoman Lindsey Eldridge said medics treated the woman for minor injuries at the scene.
Police did not identify the man or the woman.
Demontea Madison said he witnessed the shooting from the middle of Fulton Avenue, which has a median running through the center of four lanes. Madison said he saw a man holding a knife over a woman on the ground as bystanders yelled at him to get off her.
When two officers arrived and ordered officers the man to drop the knife, the man dropped down on top of the woman, Madison said.
Then one officer started shooting at the man from a few feet away, Madison said.
“He emptied the whole clip and he reloads the clip. He’s consistently telling him drop the knife, but he’s already dying,” Madison said. “That’s what made me upset. He didn’t have to shoot him like that.”
Harrison said the two officers involved in the shooting were at police headquarters Sunday evening but had not yet been interviewed. Only one officer appeared to have fired his weapon, he said.
This is the second shooting by Baltimore police this year. Two officers fatally shot 18-year-old Donnell Rochester in February. At a protest in March, Rochester’s family members and other demonstrators demanded the officers be criminally charged.
Staff from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office are jointly investigating the Sunday shooting along with the Baltimore Police Department’s Special Investigation Response Team, Harrison said. Beginning last year, the Independent Investigations Division investigates all deadly uses of force by officers across the state.
Ken Thompson, lead monitor for the city’s consent decree, was also on the scene Sunday.
“No one wants to stand here and have any loss of life,” Mayor Brandon Scott said at a news conference.
Scott said assaulting anyone with a dangerous weapon could not be tolerated in Baltimore, and he praised officers for responding quickly.
“We could be talking here tonight about a woman who lost her life as well but we are not because of the actions they took quickly,” Scott said.
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