Dante Hemingway went to see a woman.
It was lunch hour for the Baltimore police detective, and he drove to a Westport home thinking she was there. But on the walk up to the door, just before he turned around and was shot three times in the chest, Hemingway saw it wasn?t the woman.
It was her girlfriend.
Sherray Douglas pleaded guilty Thursday in Baltimore Circuit Court to conspiring with Jobrea Lodge, a 21-year-old man and her childhood friend, to rob the detective that day in March. Lodge also pleaded guilty to attempted murder for shooting Hemingway in a set-up that was fueled, attorneys said, by Douglas? romantic jealousy.
“The plentiful supply of weapons in this city creates the atmosphere for these crimes,” defense attorney Michael Kaminkow said. “Out of her jealous rage,” he said, Douglas plotted a robbery that turned bloody ? having no idea that Hemingway was a police officer.
Douglas, 21, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, while Lodge, who was charged with shooting Hemingway and received a gunshot wound to the leg in return, was sentenced to 20.
Hemingway?s family and fellow police officers gathered with him in court. The detective said he expects to have two more rounds of surgery and return to work.
Hours after Hemingway was found collapsed and bleeding in a patch of grass in Westport, the shooting apparently seemed duty-related to public officials.
“He?s fighting for his life right now because he?s out there protecting all of ours,” Baltimore Mayor Martin O?Malley said that afternoon.
But piecing together the facts, investigators learned it all began the night before, when Hemingway gave his phone number to a woman he had just met. Douglas, who was in a relationship with the woman, found out about Hemingway?s apparent advances and took her girlfriend?s cell phone, according to court testimony. She used it to call Hemingway to Westport.
Hemingway reached for his gun when he turned around outside the home and saw Lodge, gun drawn, according to court testimony. Both fired.
Lodge?s mother, Lillie Robinson, sat in the gallery wiping tears, worried she would be late for work if she stayed to see her son plead guilty.
“I?m glad he?s well,” she said of Hemingway. “Too much stuff happens on these streets.”
