BALTIMORE — One person is dead and two injured, including a police officer, after a shooting in Towson on Saturday night that is being investigated by the state attorney general’s Independent Investigations Division.
Baltimore County Police said officers were responding to a report of “unknown trouble” at the Virginia Towers apartment building in the 500 block of Virginia Avenue at 8:40 p.m. when they heard what sounded like gunfire.
On an upper floor, according to Chief Melissa Hyatt, they found an “armed subject” with a handgun. A police news release said the person was leaving an apartment.
More than one officer fired their weapon, along with the subject, Hyatt said. The subject was struck and killed, and an officer was injured. He is conscious at a hospital with an injury to his finger.
Hyatt said officers then found an adult inside the apartment with life-threatening wounds. They were transported to an area hospital.
It is not clear whether that individual had been shot or suffered other injuries. A spokesman for the Independent Investigations Division said it would be part of the unit’s investigation.
”Our office is going to work to process the entire crime scene. Through our investigation, we will determine whether or not that second individual was injured by the decedent on scene or if that came from the police department,” Thomas Lester, the spokesman, said.
Officials said there was body camera footage of the shooting. Lester said it would be released after the Independent Investigations Division completed interviews with any witnesses.
Neither the officers nor the two individuals at the apartment have been identified. Lester said investigators generally release the name of officers involved in a shooting within 48 hours. That time period can be extended if an officer is injured or their safety is at risk. The identity of the man who was killed will be released within 48 hours depending on when his next of kin is notified.
Virginia Towers is subsidized for many older residents and people with disabilities. Standing outside the 15-floor high-rise Sunday morning, residents said that many were shaken up by the shooting, which echoed loudly throughout the building. Multiple shots were fired on the 11th floor, they said, leaving bullet holes in a metal door of one apartment.
Police officers swarmed the building after the shooting, residents said. Officers searched the stairwell and roped off the 11th floor as a police helicopter hovered around the building. People who left their apartments were unable to get back into the building for at least a half-hour.
Hyatt praised the officers’ response to what they believed was gunfire, calling it in line with their training. She also called the shooting, which she viewed on body camera footage, “incredibly frightening.” She added, “I could very easily be coming out here to talk about a very different outcome for our police officers.”
David Marks, a Baltimore County councilman who represents Towson, said the county will do “whatever we can to bolster public safety” after “unsettling” incidents such as the shooting near the heart of Towson Square, an outdoor mall. The apartment building is across the street from a Cinemark movie theater.
“Our prayers are with the police officer who seems to be making a recovery,” Marks said.
Baltimore County police have shot at least two other people this year. Officers shot and seriously injured 19-year-old Shane Radomski in Dundalk in April. A Baltimore County grand jury found that the four officers who fired their weapons were justified. The attorney general’s office said Radomski was shot after driving a car that crashed into an unmarked police car while officers attempted to arrest two homicide suspects. Radomski was not a suspect.
A police officer fatally shot 39-year-old Ralph Picarello III in Essex in May. The attorney general’s office said police were responding to a domestic violence complaint when a Picarello picked up two knives and “moved quickly toward officers.” One officer deployed a Taser, and two fired weapons, striking Picarello.
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