A handcuffed detainee overpowered his arresting officer Wednesday and held a female civilian employee hostage inside Baltimore City?s Northeastern District police station for three hours before negotiators brought the conflict to a peaceful end.
Police identified the suspect as Rodney Bethea, 21, of the 1000 block of Woodson Road, Baltimore.
The arresting police officer, attacked at noon, was treated for minor lacerations to the head, face and neck at Mercy Hospital and released a short time afterward. The hostage and suspect were not injured, according to a police spokesman.
“While in custody, the handcuffed suspect somehow got his handcuffed hands in front of his body and attacked the arresting police officer with a sharp metal object believed to be scissors,” said Maj. Antonio Rodriquez, the station?s district commander.
“He then ran down the hall to a nearby female clerical employee?s office, shut and locked the door.”
Police spokesman Troy Harris said he could not recall a similar incident inside a city police station. Rodriquez said the circumstances around the attack and hostage crisis would be investigated. He would not estimate how many employees or police officers were in the station at the time of the attack.
Rodriquez confirmed that the suspect?s mother was brought in to aid the SWAT team?s negotiating unit, speaking by phone into the barricaded first-floor office. He added that the arrestee made no demands other than “a couple of cigarettes.”
At 2:22 p.m., a single boom sounded inside the building from a flash-bang device, which police said is often used by tactical units either as a diversion or to open a door. Forty minutes later, police announced they had recaptured the suspect.
Bethea, who has a history of burglary arrests, according to police, was originally arrested on marijuana possession charges. He now also faces one count of false imprisonment, two counts of first-degree assault, one count of second-degree escape and at least one count of assault with a deadly weapon, according to Detective Donnie Moses.
The station is located on Argonne Drive, opposite Morgan State University?s Fine Arts Center.
