Baltimore police said they shot and killed a man who was firing an “AR-15-type” weapon at them, and are now seeking to understand his motive.
Four officers dressed in plainclothes came in contact with the man, whose name or race has not yet been released, when they heard gunfire and responded to the scene. Upon arrival, they were shot at, and then returned fire, a Baltimore Police Department spokesman said.
No officers or civilians were wounded. The suspect, however, who fired from an apartment building with what police said was an “AR-15-type” weapon, was then shot at by two of the officers. The suspect then retreated into the building, while officers searched for other suspects in the area, NBC News reported.
They didn’t find any other suspects, but found the shooter’s firearm in a nearby tree line. Police then arranged transport for the suspect to a nearby hospital, where he died, police said.
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.
“We don’t have a victim,” said T.J. Smith, a spokesman for the city’s police department, NBC News reported. “No one has come forward and said, ‘Hey, I was being shot at.'”
Smith said the man could have been luring them with intent to kill – similar to the Dallas shooter, Micah Johnson, who fatally gunned down five police officers and wounded another seven in what appeared to have been a targeted attack on law enforcement.
“Officers were drawn due to gunfire,” Smith said. “Were they specifically drawn there by him if [he] might have known they were in the area? We don’t know the answer to that yet, but that’s something that we’re trying to figure out.”
He said investigators were currently looking at that “theory” and would hopefully have answers to reveal on Friday, at a planned press conference.
In a tweet that included a photograph of the recovered weapon from the shooter, Baltimore Police said: “We will hold next briefing tomorrow afternoon. This is the gun recovered from the scene. Watch #Periscope for brief.”
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. Last week, tensions between the black community and police ratcheted even further after five police officers were killed, seven injured, and two other civilians also hurt, as Johnson holed himself up in a garage in downtown Dallas and unleashed a swirl of gunfire on cops.
None of the four officers involved in the Baltimore shooting have been identified, and neither has the dead suspect. But the two officers who fired at the suspect were placed on administrative duty, a move Smith described as normal procedure for such incidents.