TOWSON, Md. — A 2.5-, and a 3-year veteran of the Baltimore County Police force were the two officers who fatally shot a machete-wielding man at a Randallstown shopping center Tuesday, Baltimore County Police announced Thursday.
The department identified Officer First-Class Sands and Officer First-Class Waugh as the officers who fired the fatal shots. Both work out of the Woodlawn Precinct. Sands has been with the department for 2.5 years. Waugh has worked for the county force for three years. Neither officer has been involved in a prior shooting. County Police are investigating the incident.
Sands and Waugh encountered 24-year-old Emanuel David Oates Tuesday afternoon at the Liberty Court Shopping Center in the 8600 block of Liberty Road. Officers were investigating a car accident in the parking lot, when an employee from the Dollar Tree store informed police someone had just shoplifted. Police investigated and began pursuing Oates, who pulled out a machete from his coat as an officer engaged him, police said. Oates then ran into the shopping center’s Aldi grocery store.
Officers followed him into the store and ordered him to drop his weapons, but Oates advanced towards them, police said, at which point he was shot in the upper body. He was taken to a hospital with critical injuries. By Wednesday afternoon, police announced Oates had succumbed to his injuries.
The department said there is body-worn camera video of the incident, but they have yet to release it.
