September 5, 2008
Police kill 2 at party after suspects turn guns on officers
Two dead, six others hurt in holiday violence
Shirley Sturgill awoke early yesterday morning to what she assumed were post Independence Day fireworks. But a few seconds later, she heard another noise that made her realize that this was no celebration.
Sturgill said she heard a man screaming so loud that it echoed throughout her normally quiet street. The sound of police sirens followed almost immediately.
"I heard about eight shots," she said. "Then all of a sudden, cops everywhere."
Two men were killed and another man was wounded by city officers after the men fired guns in the air at a wild Independence Day party and later refused to give up their weapons outside a union hall in Southwest Baltimore, police said. The fatal shootings were the 11th and 12th by Baltimore police officers this year. In all of last year, city police shot and killed 13 people.
The union hall shooting was one of a half-dozen incidents of gunplay that occurred in the city after dark Friday as holiday celebrations turned violent. Such Independence Day disturbances have become common across the country with fireworks giving way to gunfire - at least two other cities saw similar incidents this Fourth of July.
The lone fatal incident in Baltimore this year, according to police, was the one outside the Maryland chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 67 headquarters. The two-story brick building in the 1400 block of Bush St. was rented by an outside organization, and at the end of the party, men began shooting skyward about 1:30 a.m., police said.
'Chaotic scene'
Officer Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman, said police arrived on the scene shortly after the men began shooting. She said officers were immediately able to identify the suspects and confront them.The suspects then turned their guns on the officers, according to Monroe.
Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for the police and mayor's office, said the three men shot were believed to be related.
He said the wounded suspect was shot in the hand and was taken to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, while the other two men were believed to have been shot in the body.
The two officers involved in the shooting have been placed on routine administrative duty pending an investigation, Clifford said.
Police are not releasing any information on the officers involved or the men who were shot.
After the shootout, police flooded the area, seized several weapons and made many other arrests unrelated to the shooting, Clifford said.
He added that as the arrests were occurring, a car crashed near the entrance to the hall, which is located in an industrial area made up of warehouses and small businesses.
"It was a fairly chaotic scene," Clifford said.
Sturgill said she stood outside her house with other neighbors and counted about 25 police cars. She said she moved into her home in the 1500 block of Bush St. last year. Sturgill described the neighborhood as a close-knit community largely devoid of violence.
"When I was outside, I saw them taking away two people on stretchers," Sturgill said.
Another neighbor, who refused to be identified but lives on the same block as Sturgill, said she was awakened by the gunshots as well.
"I just looked out of my window and then saw all the police," she said.
The woman said she has lived on the block for decades and said the hall is frequently rented for parties that can last well into the early morning hours. She said that this is the first time she can remember a shooting or violent incident after a party.
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