1 Dead in Trooper-Involved Shooting at Md. Gas Station

The man killed in a trooper-involved shooting Monday morning used a stolen SUV to ram an unmarked police car, Maryland State Police said. 

A Maryland State Police trooper noticed a Lincoln Navigator with expired tags in the parking lot of the Sheetz gas station before 9 a.m. The trooper called for backup after learning the vehicle was stolen in an armed robbery in Baltimore. 

When a second trooper arrived, they approached the Navigator with their lights activated.

The suspect got into the SUV, and the troopers got out of their cars and ordered him to show his hands and surrender. police said.

Instead, he accelerated and rammed an unmarked Frederick police car arriving with its lights on, pinning the officer in the car. 

The suspect got out of the SUV while it was still moving and started to run from the scene with one or both hands in his pockets, police said. He continued to ignore orders to show his hands.

A witness told police the man quickly pulled his hand out of his pocket and lunged at a trooper before the trooper fired, police said. The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene.

He had a large folding knife in his possession, police said. 

The Frederick police officer was taken to a hospital. None of the troopers or anyone at the gas station was injured.

Carl Castle saw the man in the men's room before the incident.

"I went to use the bathroom, and he was in there and he had his clothes off," Castle said. "He was cleaning himself up and said he was on a long trip."

The man had a stack of cash on the counter, Castle said.

"He was showing it to me, saying, 'Let's go party,'" he said. "And he just started flipping through hundred dollar bills."

Dominic Rosso, who works at a doughnut shop across the street, said he heard the collision, followed by four shots. He said that when he looked outside, "the whole Sheetz lot was crawling with cop cars."

The gas station remained closed into the afternoon, with yellow-crime scene tape surrounding it. Traffic was detoured around a block-long section of Monocacy Boulevard near the road's intersection with Interstate 70.

Baltimore Police reported that when the car was stolen Sunday, the thief showed the owner a handgun in his waistband and told him to back off, state police spokesman Greg Shipley said. It's not clear if the man who was shot by police was the same person who stole the SUV, he said.

The trooper who fired his weapon is on routine administrative leave, Shipley said.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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