BEL AIR, Md. — Armed with a handgun and alone in his home in the Fountain Green Manufactured Home park in Bel Air, neighbors reported the man stepped outside and was agitated, firing a handgun into the air.
“Yes, like paranoid,” said Karen Gehring, one of the man’s neighbors, “He was very paranoid that someone was following him, which happens when you have mental illness.”
The Harford County Sheriff’s Office brought in a crisis negotiations team and spent an hour on the telephone trying to talk the man down when he emerged from his home with the handgun held to his head and ignored commands to drop it.
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“Upon advancing upon our people, two of the members deployed one rifle and one less-lethal device and incapacitated the subject and were able to take him into custody,” said Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler.
The sheriff later clarified that a bullet struck the man in the shoulder.
In the aftermath of the shooting, paramedics airlifted 41-year-old William Hawkins to Shock Trauma in Baltimore where at last report, he was listed in serious condition.
In addition to Harris’s nine-millimeter handgun, investigators discovered 15 long guns inside the home, even though he was prohibited from possessing a firearm.
We’re told deputies had a previous encounter with Harris a few years ago when he brandished a butcher knife and said his intent then, as it was now, was to commit suicide by cop.
“I didn’t think they were going to go in for a kill shot or anything, and he wasn’t. They brought him out and he was telling everybody he loved them and he was so sorry that this happened,” said Gehring, “You know, it wasn’t anger like somebody had done something to him. He was scared. He sounded scared more than anything.”
