Baltimore police are still looking for a second suspect in a robbery early Tuesday morning that injured two law enforcement officers and a female friend ? hours before the men were to attend the funeral of a Baltimore police officer.
Michael McCann of the Virginia State Police had driven up from Petersburg, Va., Monday evening to stay with Jason Dietsch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security so the friends could attend Tuesday?s funeral of Det. Troy Chesley as a show of support, Dietsch said.
“Any other time this would have happened, I still would have been shocked,” said Dietsch, a lifetime resident of the area. But to get robbed just hours before the funeral made him even angrier.
McCann, 37, and Dietsch, 27, were standing with friend Marie Burkhead, of Baltimore, in the 2800 block of O?Donnell Street around 2 a.m. when two men approached them and demanded money, according to a police report. One assailant was armed with a .38-caliber revolver, the report says.
The unarmed man punched McCann in the face before hitting Burkhead, 33, and stealing her purse.
The other struck Dietsch under the eye with his gun, fracturing two bones, after the officer attempted to swat the gun away, the police report said.
Dietsch gave the man $20 from his wallet and a tube of lip balm before the assailants fled.
“Luckily nobody was hurt any more,” Burkhead said. “That?s what I?m thankful for.”
Dietsch?s injuries forced him to miss the funeral and spend all day and night Tuesday in the hospital. McCann attended and played the bagpipes in the ceremony.
Police responded to a 911 call McCann made and arrested 20-year-old Jean C. Sierra of the 300 block of Sacred Heart Lane in Glyndon, whom the victims identified as one of their assailants, according to the police report.
Sierra was found with a fully loaded .38-caliber revolver, the records state.
