Two police officers assigned to a U.S. Marshals task force were shot and wounded Wednesday in Northeast Baltimore while trying to arrest a former state corrections officer wanted for attempted murder in Pennsylvania.
The man, identified by two state law enforcement officials as Michael Marullo, was shot and killed. The two officials were not authorized to speak to the media.
Police said they found a gun on him.
Earlier Wednesday, local police in Pennsylvania charged Marullo, 33, with attempted homicide, gun charges and reckless endangerment. The charges stemmed from an incident Tuesday and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.
According to 6ABC in Philadelphia, police said Marullo fired a gun during an argument in Lower Chichester Township, Pennsylvania on Tuesday night. No one was injured during the shooting and police received a tip that Marullo was in Baltimore.
Marullo resigned last month as a Maryland corrections officer, officials said. He had been acquitted of destruction of property in Baltimore last week. His attorney, Thomas Maronick, said Marullo and an ex-girlfriend had been locked in a legal dispute.
“This is a terrible tragedy; it’s sad to hear his life was lost today,” Maronick said.
Law enforcement officers were searching for Marullo around noon Wednesday when they found him armed in the 5900 block of Radecke Ave., police said.
"Our worst fears became a reality,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said outside the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where the officers were hospitalized.
One of the wounded officers required an emergency operation, said Dr. Thomas Scalea, Shock Trauma’s physician-in-chief. Other officers, he said, saved their colleague’s life by applying a tourniquet.
Baltimore police spokesman Detective Donny Moses said the city officer who was shot was released from Shock Trauma on Wednesday evening.
Neighbors recounted a harrowing scene, with bursts of gunfire and officers flooding a courtyard of the Gardenvillage Apartments at the edge of the city.
Ashanta Johnson was stepping out of the shower when she heard it. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
She ran and looked out her third-floor window. There was shouting below. “All I remember them saying is, 'Get down! Get down!’”
Through the pine trees, she saw officers yelling at someone in an apartment across the courtyard. She couldn’t see the suspect, just the officers at the front door with their guns drawn. One officer ran back to the car and grabbed a shield or bulletproof vest. She couldn’t tell for sure.
“They made it in the building and they told the guy to get down,” she said. “It was a lot of gunshots.”
Officers swarmed in from all directions, she said. Helicopters came buzzing overhead; the shooting had stopped.
When she stepped outside, she said, officers were pulling a white sheet over a figure in the grass.
Authorities have not identified the wounded officers. Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt said commanders have been able to speak with them at the hospital.
The two officers — one from Baltimore City, one from the county — served in the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, said David Lutz, spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service. The service routinely deputizes officers from local agencies, including the city and counties, to arrest fugitives. They were attempting to serve one such arrest warrant on Marullo.
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Neighbor Sannovia Hill said she was startled by the sudden bursts of gunfire.
“I couldn’t see, but I could hear pretty clearly," she said. “It was like six to eight shots. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Then a pause.”
Another neighbor, Kevin Johnson, said he came out after the gunshots ended and saw officers in tactical gear helping one of the wounded. They held him up, supporting him. The man appeared to be struggling to walk, but he seemed conscious, Johnson said.
“It was like six of them. They hooked underneath his arms and carried him out,” he said.
Police strung yellow crime scene tape to close off the courtyard. A technician swept the ground with a metal detector. She wore white gloves and stopped to bend down at times and search through the grass. Another officer came and searched the grounds with a police dog on a leash. A small crowd of neighbors watched and filmed it all with their cellphones.
Detectives gathered around the white sheet on the ground. When one bent down to adjust the sheet, there was a glimpse of a red stain. A few feet away, propped against a tree, was a black shield marked “U.S. Marshals.”
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Meanwhile, officers and city leaders arrived at the hospital downtown. In a statement, Gov. Larry Hogan urged the public to keep the officers in mind.
“We ask Marylanders to join us in praying for the full and speedy recovery of the brave officers who were injured,” he said.
The shooting comes just a week after two Anne Arundel County police detectives were injured in a shooting that led to a daylong manhunt. Police and prosecutors said Robert Mitchell Willis will be prosecuted for shootings, including one that occurred just inside the city.
Last year, three Baltimore officers were injured in shootings. Sgt. Bill Shiflett remains on medical leave after he was shot in an exchange with a gunman at a North Baltimore methadone clinic in July.
In August, Sgt. Isaac Carrington was shot while off-duty outside his Northeast Baltimore home in a robbery. Two men have since been charged in the attack.
The same month police pursued a man wanted for allegedly firing upon officers and attempting to strike them with a vehicle. Days later, the man, Tyrone Banks, was killed in a shootout with police. One officer was shot in the leg and a woman also was injured, possibly by gunfire or the resulting shrapnel after the exchange, police said.
Baltimore Sun reporters McKenna Oxenden, Pamela Wood, Justin Fenton, Kevin Rector, Phil Davis and Phillip Jackson contributed to this article.