When Baltimore police have drawn their firearms this year, they have been killing suspects at a much higher rate than last year.
In just over three months, police have shot nine people ? killing eight of them. That?s a fatality rate about three times higher than last year, when there were 13 fatal police-involved shootings in all of 2007.
“Anytime a police officer feels obligated to use his weapon, lethal force is justified,” said Baltimore Police Department spokesman Sterling Clifford. “If it turns out to be nonfatal, that?s great, but our officers wouldn?t be using their firearms if lethal force wasn?t justified.”
The latest police-involved shooting, the only nonfatal incident of the year, occurred Wednesday evening at 8:40 p.m. in Southwest Baltimore.
Two plainclothes officers were working when they heard gunshots coming from Poplar Grove Street, police said.
The officers saw a suspect running, and one officer got out of the patrol car to chase him on foot while the other officer drove around to cut him off, said police spokesman Agent Donny Moses.
As the officer on foot closed in on the man, the suspect raised his weapon and shot at the officer once, causing the officer to return fire, striking the suspect multiple times in the shoulder and side, Moses said.
The suspect, whose name has not been released, is a 28-year-old man. He was in critical condition Thursday at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center. John Jay College of Criminal Justice criminologist Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer, said officers aren?t trigger-happy; they?re just facing violent criminals on a daily basis.
“Generally you find that 3-to-1 ratio in police involved shootings ? one third are going to get killed,” he said. “It?s amazing how many people get shot in Baltimore. The best predictor of police-involved shootings are violent neighborhoods. No one wants to shoot anybody, but a cop?s got to go home.”
Moskos, the author of “Cop in the Hood,” about his time serving in Baltimore?s Eastern District, said he?d expect police-involved shootings to eventually decrease as the homicide rate drops.
“As homicides go down … you?d expect police shooting to go down as well,” he said.
