Police in Baltimore are still investigating how two officers were shot and wounded during a confrontation that left an attempted-murder suspect from Pennsylvania dead, the department said in a statement Friday.
Police said Michael Marullo was “brandishing" a gun when police from a fugitive task force approached him about noon Wednesday. Marullo's .357 magnum “was fully loaded with six live rounds” when recovered at the scene, police added.
During the confrontation, a Baltimore police officer was struck in the calf and a Baltimore County police officer was shot in the abdomen and leg, the department said.
Both officers are recovering from their wounds. They are Baltimore police Officer Robert Adams and Baltimore County police Officer Swinney, whose first name was not provided.
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The statement offered few other details about who or how many people may have fired a gun.
Baltimore police spokesman Donny Moses said by phone that investigators are "looking at everything," including friendly fire.
The officers were part of the U.S. Marshal's Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force. Baltimore police said they're coordinating with agencies assigned to the unit “to determine all the facts surrounding this incident.”
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Speaking on Wednesday, Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison did not specify who had fired at the officers or who had shot Marullo.
Neighbors at the scene of the shooting in the city’s Frankford neighborhood told The Baltimore Sun that a suspect was “shooting back” at officers.
Marullo was a former state corrections official who had been under investigation, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Wednesday. He said the task force officers were going after “a really bad guy.”
The shootings happened as city, state and federal officials have touted the use of multiagency task forces to stymie gang-related activity and violent crime as a whole.
In December, the Department of Justice announced a plan to increase the overall number of federal agents in Baltimore and add more officers to task forces. Months earlier, the department unveiled a task force focused on gun- and drug-related crime in the city.
Members of the new task force, including agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, work from a shared location to increase coordination.
