Baltimore Police video shows wild chase before officers fired 70 shots at carjacking suspect

An officer riding in Baltimore Police’s Foxtrot helicopter closely watched a Dodge minivan believed to have been stolen in a carjacking in Baltimore County early Sunday morning as the vehicle crisscrossed the city.

In West Baltimore, near where the 18-minute pursuit had started, he called out one last update to patrol officers who were following the suspect on the ground around 1:40 a.m: “He’s stopping. He’s stopping here. Clifton and Dennison. Clifton and Dennison.”

On the ground, patrol cars blocked in the minivan, according to helicopter and body camera footage released by police Friday. Eight officers jumped out and surrounded the minivan, where the suspect, who briefly tried to bail out, had locked himself inside.

Officer Antonio Groomes, a five-year Baltimore Police veteran, drew his gun, walked toward the van and shouted, “Hands! Hands! Hands!”

The man in the minivan, who police later identified as 42-year-old Maurice Daniels, complied briefly. Then, as another officer prepared to shatter his window with a glass-breaking tool, he began to lower his right hand towards his waist.

“Gun! Gun! Gun!” Groomes shouted.

He and five other officers immediately opened fire, cumulatively unleashing 70 rounds in Daniels’ direction, officials said Friday. It’s unclear how many bullets struck Daniels.

Body camera footage showed Daniels motionless in the driver’s seat following the gunfire and the minivan pockmarked with bullet holes. Officers then removed him and rendered aid.

Medics took Daniels, of Millersville in Anne Arundel County, to a hospital where medical personnel pronounced him dead.

“We recognize this is a tragic incident that is difficult to watch. Our thoughts remain with the Daniels family,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley told reporters, noting that his agency showed the footage to Daniels’ family before releasing it to the public.

On Sunday, before his colleagues rendered aid to Daniels, one officer who appeared to arrive after the shooting put on a glove and reached into the car, recovering what appeared like a gun, the officer’s body camera footage showed.

Deputy Commissioner Brian Nadeau said the weapon was a BB gun replica of a Colt 1911 handgun and that it did not have an orange tip or any other markings distinguishing it from a real firearm.

While Worley called the fatal shooting “concerning,” he also seemed to defend his officers.

“It looked like a real gun,” Worley said. “At that point, with the adrenaline going, remember they believe they have an armed carjacking subject.”

Nadeau said officers are trained to assess each pull of the trigger as they fired. The six who fired — Groomes, Sgt. Kevin Rivera and Officers Charles Blackman, David Weldon, Darrius Hicklin and Al-Shakier Drake — would be questioned about how they processed what was happening, according to the deputy commissioner.

All six are on routine administrative duty following the shooting. Because there are concurrent investigations by Baltimore Police’s internal affairs unit and the Maryland attorney general’s Independent Investigations Division, which probes all fatalities involving police in the state, those officers cannot be questioned without an attorney present.

The officer who recovered the BB gun, who did not fire his weapon, already spoke with investigators and told them he recovered the weapon from Daniels’ hand, Nadeau said.

“We train officers to know where their rounds are going,” Nadeau said before cautioning that “those rounds go off really quickly.”

Baltimore Police policy also generally prohibits police pursuits, Worley said, unless there are “exigent circumstances” such as the apprehension of someone alleged to have committed a carjacking.

Worley noted that there weren’t many other vehicles on the road at the early hour and that if any chase “gets too dangerous, they can call it off.”

The officer in the helicopter repeatedly told pursuing officers to keep their distance and watch “cross streets.”

“Black minivan. Underneath the search light. We got it. Just fall back and listen,” the officer broadcast from Foxtrot.

At that point, the minivan was passing the Western District Police Station on North Mount Street. It would take officers across town in downtown, approaching police headquarters on East Fayette Street, rounding the Monument in Mount Vernon, and eventually doubling back to West Baltimore.

Daniels ran stoplights, rushed through intersections, made U-turns, and cut through parking lots and alleyways. At one point, he narrowly maneuvered around a bus traveling through an intersection.

Officers generally kept a distance as their counterpart in the helicopter called out its location frequently throughout the 18-minute chase, keeping them abreast of every turn.

Once the car stopped, the shooting played out through its night vision camera.

A sequence of muzzle flashes could be seen as officers backed away from the minivan.

“Watch your cross streets,” Foxtrot warned. “Shots fired.”

This story has been updated.