BALTIMORE, Md — A suspect trying to outrun one police officer on foot while two others in a patrol car narrow the gap.
“Get on the ground! You’re gonna get shot!”
“Get on the ground! I will shoot you!” yell the officers from the vehicle.
As the officer on foot makes a fleeting attempt to disarm him on North Stricker Street, the 17-year-old breaks away in what would prove to be an act, which would cost him his life.
“He doesn’t drop the weapon,” said Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley as he displayed the body-worn camera footage, “He turns and points the weapon towards the officer. The officers open fire.”
All toll, three officers would fire as many as 21 times with 12 bullets striking William Gardner who fell to the ground losing his grip on a gun in one hand and a cell phone in the other.
The firearm proved to be a loaded nine millimeter.
On the night of the shooting, the police commissioner said his officers had seen Gardner and spotted characteristics of someone who may be armed with a handgun.
(SOT)—“At least one of the officers observed a male, later identified as William Gardner, grabbing his waistband and doing what appeared to be a security check,” explained Deputy Comm. Brian Nadeau, “This can be indicative of an individual who has a firearm in their waistband and they’re checking to make sure it is still there and not falling or moving.”
There is no footage of what originally drew the officer’s attention to Gardner, but members of the Group Violence Unit had converged on the area after reports of two groups shooting at each other earlier.
“It is in the area in the Western/Southwest border where we’ve been getting shooting after shooting and robbery after robbery,” said Worley.
Investigators may never know if the group he was standing with when officers first spotted him was one of them.
