FALLSTON, Md. — Wanted for allegedly shooting a Baltimore County police officer who had come to his Cockeysville home for a person in crisis report, 24-year-old David Linthicum eluded police for three days and proved to be as armed and dangerous as believed.
“If the guy’s going to shoot a cop, he would shoot anybody I would think,” one of the suspect’s neighbors, Ray Haynes, had told us a matter of hours before the second shooting in as many days.
Thursday night, police say Linthicum shot a Baltimore County police detective multiple times not far from the suspect’s house along Warren Road before fleeing in the officer’s car eventually travelling into Harford County where a chase ended at Bel Air and Mountain Roads.
“I think we can credit a Baltimore County police officer who, as I heard it on the radio, was able to get stop sticks out in front of the vehicle and flatten his tires,” Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told reporters at a news conference early Friday.
Linthicum jumped out of the vehicle with a long gun and fled into the rocky terrain behind the Fallston Mall where police had him isolated for hours before his ultimate surrender.
We spoke with the sheriff later as he reflected on his deputies’ restraint faced with a suspect who had allegedly attempted to kill not one, but two officers.
“He picked a spot there were a lot of large rocks that he was able to, in a creek bed, and he was able to hunker down there. I think he thought he was hiding. We saw him the entire time,” said Gahler. “Had he had the weapon with him and began firing, at that point, we would have been able to employ deadly force and end that threat. Again, I am very thankful and behalf of the men and women here, we’re very thankful it didn’t come to that.”
Gahler says after the second shooting in Cockeysville where the pursuit began, he had no idea whether the victim was one of his deputies or not, nor did he know whether the wounded officer had survived.
