Police videotapes clearly show Josh T. Waterman driving north on Interstate 95, unfazed by blaring police sirens and flashing lights as Maryland Transportation Authority police cruisers give chase for a traffic violation.

Fourteen minutes after Waterman first refused to pull over for speeding, two videotapes show gun-pointing police officers surrounding his slow-moving car at the Fort McHenry Tunnel toll plaza. In a brief but deadly salvo, they fire eight bullets that crash through the unarmed man's windows and kill him.

The fatal result on that day in November 2000, vividly seen on videotape and in eyewitness accounts obtained by The Sun, is the focus of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by the family of Waterman, a North Carolina man with a history of mental illness. It is also a tragic example of how a relatively minor traffic violation can escalate into a fatal shooting, raising troubling questions about police car chases and use of deadly force.

Although Maryland Transportation Authority officials ruled that the officers acted appropriately, experts say the men violated fundamental procedures for how police are supposed to respond in such cases. The shooting, the experts say, should never have happened.

"It is not a justified shooting," said D.P. Van Blaricom, a former police chief of the Bellevue, Wash., Police Department who has testified in hundreds of use-of-force lawsuits.

Waterman's inexplicable and bizarre actions did not help his cause and contributed to a frenzied scene. Police did not set out to fatally shoot Waterman and had little time to prepare for the confrontation. They were also clearly worried about a collision at the heavily traveled toll plaza, where four months earlier a 14-year-old boy in a stolen car killed two women by crashing into their car in the tunnel.

Cameras mounted to the windshields of two police cars recorded the entire incident and provide a rare, independent look into a shooting by police. Their videotapes and witness statements - which The Sun recently obtained through sources and public information requests - show that Waterman clearly ignored police orders. But his actions on tape do not indicate that he was endangering the lives of police or others.

In fact, the experts say, it appears the police put other people at risk in their pursuit and decision to shoot while toll takers and motorists were nearby. One toll collector said that he and another collector were so frightened by the gunshots that they dived to the ground.

Among the details revealed in reports and videotapes:

Officers don't appear to be threatened moments before opening fire at Waterman's slow-moving, unswerving car.

Although officers had laid a trap to deflate his car's tires, they opened fire before giving that plan a chance. Waterman was repeatedly shot and mortally wounded before officers used tire-deflating devices to bring the car to a halt.

Police may have misgauged the potential threat because a pursuing officer incorrectly reported over the air that Waterman tried to run him off the road. In fact, Waterman had done the opposite, swerving away from the officer's car, a videotape shows.

A high-ranking commander tried to call off the chase, but the officers pursuing Waterman had switched radio frequencies and didn't hear him.

Except for a statement in April that defended the Transportation Authority's investigation and said "the officers acted to protect their own safety and the safety of the public," agency officials declined to comment, noting pending litigation.

Col. Larry E. Harmel, chief of the Transportation Authority Police, declined to be interviewed, as did John D. Porcari, secretary of the state Department of Transportation and chairman of the authority, and the authority's lawyer in the case, Karen J. Kruger of the Maryland Attorney General's Office.

The Sun requested reports and videotapes immediately after the shooting on Nov. 28, 2000, and renewed the request each month. The newspaper obtained copies of reports after the authority said it had just finished its own investigation.

The Baltimore State's Attorney's Office also investigated the shooting. Prosecutors, who requested that an enhanced version of one videotape be made, declined to press charges. State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy also declined to be interviewed.

An authority spokeswoman said the officers were not allowed to comment. The officers were not punished.

The authority's 382 officers patrol Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the agency's toll facilities, the port of Baltimore, and the 10 miles of I-95 east to the Baltimore County line just north of the Fort McHenry Tunnel.

The threshold to charge police for shootings is much higher than for ordinary citizens. Prosecutors would have to convince jurors that the officers did not believe that the use of deadly force was needed or that the officers' belief was unreasonable.

In a $2 million lawsuit in federal court in Baltimore, Waterman's family alleges that police violated Waterman's civil rights and "were grossly negligent in attacking Josh Waterman with unreasonable deadly force, and they acted with a malicious, wanton and reckless disregard."

"The acts were taken with actual malice," the suit says, "with the express purpose and intent to injure Josh Waterman and take his life."

The circumstances of Nov. 28, 2000, began developing years earlier when Waterman showed symptoms of bipolar disorder, once known as manic depression. For more than two decades, Waterman battled the disease, which sent him into anxious and irritable moods. He was also an alcoholic.

In 1999, Waterman tried to punch a North Carolina officer who was arresting him for trespassing, according to the authority's police reports. The officer subdued him with pepper spray. Waterman was then committed to a mental institution.

But Waterman's relatives insist he was not violent.

"He was gentle," said his brother, Michael. "He was a very giving person. He was a top-notch guy."

Waterman, his family said, was known for reaching out to friends in need. He counseled other alcoholics. One friend wrote Waterman's parents and said their son had "saved his life.

"Josh's tireless efforts, his unselfishness, the times he literally came to my house to rescue me from whatever destructive actions I had planned, this is the only reason I am alive today," he wrote after Waterman's death.

In the months before the shooting, Waterman moved into his brother's house in Raleigh, N.C., and his condition improved. He worked as a furniture salesman.

But by late November, Waterman, then 42, apparently had stopped taking his medication, Michael Waterman said.

Without explanation, Waterman left the home and headed north in his champagne-colored Mazda Protege, possibly to visit his parents in Rhode Island.

At 3:08 p.m. Nov. 28, as Waterman drove east on Interstate 195 toward BWI, he zipped past Officer Eric A. Farrow, who was standing on the right shoulder near Aviation Boulevard, police reports show. Farrow wrote in a police report that he clocked Waterman going 51 mph in a 25-mph zone. Waterman then ran a stop sign.

The Sun has reconstructed the resulting pursuit based on videotapes, police reports, witness statements and the analysis of two independent experts:

Waterman, Farrow reported, ignored him when the officer tried to wave the motorist to the roadside. The officer jumped into his cruiser and chased the speeding Mazda. At the upper level of the airport, Waterman drove through a stop sign.

At 3:10 p.m., Farrow radioed dispatchers: "The subject is refusing to stop."

Waterman headed west on I-195, going between 55 and 65 mph, and Farrow calmly asked for backup over his police radio.

Farrow followed Waterman north on I-95 as Waterman drove mostly the speed limit, though he accelerated and changed lanes several times without signaling.

Soon, Officer Adam E. Watkowski joined the chase. Video cameras mounted in both of the officers' patrol cars were recording the pursuit.

Watkowski and Farrow switched radio frequencies - allowing them to speak with dispatchers at the Fort McHenry Tunnel instead of at BWI. The officers learned from dispatchers that Waterman's car was not stolen and its owner, Waterman, was not wanted for any crimes.

At 3:17 p.m., as Waterman and the officers continued north on I-95, Watkowski pulled in front of Waterman's car, then quickly slowed until his cruiser almost touched the front left of Waterman's car, a videotape shows.

Waterman jerked away from the patrol car, one videotape shows. But Watkowski radioed dispatchers that Waterman had tried to "run me off the road." Farrow also noted in his report that Waterman had "tried to hit" the other officer.

Three minutes later, a supervisor ordered: "Call it off now."

Capt. William Downing, stationed at BWI, told one of his subordinates to end the pursuit, the captain wrote in a report, after learning the driver was going 55 mph. "I didn't want the vehicle going near the plaza," Downing said.

He told a sergeant to "call it off now."

But Downing's order never reached Farrow or Watkowski because they had switched radio frequencies to speak to dispatchers at the tunnel command center. The phone call to end the chase reached police at the toll plaza, and a corporal at the center was going to relay the messages to dispatchers, reports show. But it was too late. As the corporal stood to tell dispatchers about the order, the shooting happened.

Transportation Authority officials said they use two radio frequencies because there would be too much radio traffic for one system to handle.

As Downing's order was being relayed to dispatchers, Waterman had led police into the Fort McHenry Tunnel. About 3:22 p.m., they emerged and Waterman slowed to a crawl, his brake lights flashing on and off.

Then, four Transportation Authority officers stepped into traffic, all converging on the Mazda. Their guns were drawn.

One officer walked in front of the Mazda; the others approached at a 45-degree angle to the front right of the car. Waterman inched forward, as the officers screamed for him to stop.

The car appears to accelerate in the direction he was originally headed, one of the videos shows, and the officers easily step aside.

Three of the four officers who walked toward the car then fired eight shots, hitting Waterman five times, in the neck, arm, shoulder and thighs.

Waterman's car continued through the tollbooth, where an officer threw "stop sticks" - which slowly deflate tires - in front of the car. A police car then rammed the Mazda, bringing it to a halt.

At the time, police officials identified the officers who fired at Waterman as Christopher Heisey, a seven-year veteran; Michael Batton, a 17-year veteran; and officer candidate Kenneth Keel, who was in his final months of training.

The officers did not return phone calls or respond to letters seeking comment.

It is unclear what role each officer played in the shooting because state lawyers had the officers' names removed from reports, citing their right to privacy.

But the officers say in those reports they shot at Waterman because they were scared.

"The driver in a quick movement gripped the steering wheel and the vehicle accelerated forward," an officer wrote. "At this time I was still toward the front of the vehicle and I could see to my right another officer. It was my belief the operator was making a deliberate attempt to strike me and the other officer. Fearing for my safety and the safety of my fellow officer, I fired my weapon."

Another officer wrote: "The subject's vehicle did not attempt to stop and continued toward [another officer] and myself. I was yelling at the subject to stop his car. The subject did not stop his car and I heard a shot fired. I raised my weapon and fired two shots as he continued toward [another officer] and myself."

Another MTA officer at the scene, Jeremy D. Birchfield, didn't see the shooting happen. But he recalled in a Maryland State Police interview that moments after the incident, he asked his fellow officers who fired the gunshots.

"One of the three [officers] said, 'We did. ... We were shooting because he tried to run us over,'" he said in the interview.

In another interview with state police, one officer said police were worried about a "catastrophic collision."

The officer, whose name was removed from the report, "indicated that traffic was very heavy, and that there was no time or resource to redirect the flow of traffic, and that police could not do anything that might cause an incident (possibly a catastrophic collision) in the tunnel tubes," state police wrote in an affidavit.

The officers also made note of Watkowski's radio dispatch telling them that Waterman was potentially dangerous. Using similar language, they wrote that Waterman had "rammed" officers, "attempted to strike" officers, or "attempted to force [an officer] off the road."

But witnesses, including Maryland Transportation Authority employees, described a much-less-threatening scene.

Elizabeth Grahe, a toll collector, said that Waterman was "just standing there and he kept like inching up," according to a transcript of a police interview.

"He couldn't move fast cause they were surrounding him so it's not like he could speed away or anything. And it was like, it looked like he would stop and all of a sudden start going again. ... It was like they had to get out of his way because he wasn't, you know, he just kept going."

Kathy Lynn Ross, another toll collector, also saw the shooting. She said officers approached the car and were yelling for Waterman to "stop, stop, stop," according to her statement.

Ross said no officer was in front of Waterman's car, however. "I mean they were very close to the car," she said. "But, none of them were right directly in front of the vehicle."

"I don't think he tried to run the officers over," Ross said. "I think he just wasn't going to stop. Because there's no officer in front of him."

Experts who reviewed the tapes and reports say police made several key mistakes.

Officers should not have approached Waterman's moving car on foot, a tactic that immediately put them at a disadvantage, experts said.

"From a tactical standpoint, approaching on foot and getting in front of his car was not very safe," said Tim Lynch, an expert on the use of force who reviewed police reports and the videotapes at the request of The Sun. "That gave them fewer options. They made a bad decision."

Lynch noted that bullets cannot stop cars; even if officers killed the driver, the car could veer out of control and hit bystanders; bullets could ricochet off the car and strike anyone at the crowded toll plaza.

Though the officers said they were in "fear" for their lives, the videotapes show that they were never in danger, said Lynch, a police officer for 25 years who also taught police tactics for four years at Maryland Police Corps, a program that prepares college graduates for police work. Lynch now trains corrections officers and sheriff's deputies at the Carroll County Detention Center.

The Maryland Transportation Authority's policy says that officers should not shoot "at or from a moving vehicle, except in self defense or defense of another when the officer reasonably believes there is an immediate threat of death of serious physical injury to the officer or to another, and there is no other available means of escape."

Lynch also criticized the officer who fired two shots into the passenger-side window - after all officers had clearly stepped from in front of the car.

"Nobody was in mortal danger at that point," Lynch said. "The driver did not have a weapon. He just wanted to get out of there."