Maryland
Death in Decker Police Shooting Ruled Suicide
LEONARDTOWN, Maryland — The State Medical Examiner’s Office has preliminarily determined that the death of Daniel Decker, 46, of Leonardtown, on April 26 was the result of a self-inflicted gun shot wound. Decker was also shot by Deputy First Class Shawn Cathcart. Deputies encountered Decker in the home of his ex-girlfriend after a manhunt led them to the residence on Sunday. Police were called to the residence the day before after the woman reported that Decker had broken into the residence and threatened a murder-suicide. She escaped unharmed.
The incident started on Saturday around 5:26 p.m. when police were called to a residence on Belvidere Lane in Leonardtown. Police determined that Decker unlawfully entered the victim’s residence and began a verbal dispute with her. The woman asked Decker to leave the residence and he refused. Decker produced a long gun and made threats towards the woman and himself. The woman attempted to leave the residence but Decker grabbed and continued to detain her against her will.
On Sunday police say they received information indicating Decker may have returned to the victim’s home. At approximately 10:20 a.m., deputies responded back to the residence and attempted to make contact with Decker via telephone and loud speaker. Deputies subsequently entered the residence to search, at which time they encountered Decker. Police say Decker was armed and gunfire was exchanged with deputies. Decker was subsequently pronounced dead at the scene. More on Southern Maryland Online
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Man Shot Wife and 3 kids in their Maryland Home
MIDDLETOWN, Md. – A father killed his wife and their three children before fatally shooting himself in a northwest Maryland home, leaving a gruesome scene that was discovered Saturday by the youngsters’ grandfather, authorities said.
When investigators arrived, the couple’s two sons, ages 5 and 4, lay dead in their beds, while the bodies of a 2-year-old daughter and the mother, Francis Billotti Wood, were in the master bedroom of the two-story home, Frederick County sheriff’s office spokeswoman Jennifer Bailey said. On the master bedroom floor by the foot of the bed was the father, 34-year-old Christopher Alan Wood, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Bailey said.
The 33-year-old mother and three children suffered “traumatic cuts,” Bailey said, but the causes of their deaths weren’t immediately confirmed.
The woman’s father found them dead around 9 a.m. He had grown concerned after not hearing from them for several days, Bailey said.
Investigators also found a shotgun and other items they believed were used to slash the victims. Several notes were found, but authorities didn’t say what was written in them. More on Yahoo! News
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Man shot by police after aiming his gun at an officer
Baltimore, Maryland – The couple had planned to spend the warm spring day in Pennsylvania, marching and camping with other Civil War re-enactors. Becky Waugh packed the pickup with their costumes and gear. But her boyfriend – owner, she said, of an antique but functional muzzleloading rifle – apparently grew angry. Just after noon Friday, she called 911 to say that he had threatened to “blow her head off,” touching off events that ended with police shooting and critically wounding the Anne Arundel County man.
From the moment Rickey Lee Kitzmiller, 42, a plumber and father of three, woke up Friday, he was in a strange state, Waugh said. “When I looked at him, there was nothing. It was just pure anger,” she said.
Cursing, Kitzmiller grabbed from the pickup a cooler of beef stew that Waugh had made for the re-enactment and hurled it at the house, she said. He smashed a Confederate statue into her new flat-panel TV and tossed the coffee table off the porch, she said.
Then the man sat down on the sofa with his rifle between his knees. “He started ripping these ‘paper ladies’ ” – packets of gunpowder – “open with his teeth and sticking them in there,” Waugh said. “I knew he was going to have to ram them down the barrel before he could shoot it, so I ran out of the house.”
Waugh ran to an aunt’s home – several relatives live on the quiet stretch of Quarterfield Road in Severn – and watched him stalk into the woods with the rifle and a blank look on his face, she said. He fired the gun and came back to the house laughing, Waugh said. Soon after, Kitzmiller’s mother arrived at the house. Waugh called police, telling the 911 operator that Kitzmiller had threatened her and had assaulted his mother.
Waugh said that, after she called 911, Kitzmiller said: “I’m going down in a blaze of glory.”
When Anne Arundel County police officers arrived, they looked through a window and saw Kitzmiller sitting in a chair with a “long gun,” police said. According to police, Kitzmiller refused several orders to drop the weapon and instead aimed it at an officer. The officer fired several rounds, and the wounded Kitzmiller was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
Kitzmiller had been depressed recently over the death of a friend from a drug overdose and was dreading a coming court date over child-support payments, Waugh said. More on Baltimore Sun
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Man charged in brother’s death in Baltimore
BALTIMORE, Maryland – Baltimore police say a Pittsburgh man has been charged with fatally shooting his brother.
Officers responding to a report of a shooting in the 4700 block of Homesdale Avenue in Baltimore on Sunday found the brothers in the basement of a home.
Police say 31-year-old Curtis Pounds was suffering from apparent gunshot wounds. Pounds was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Police wrote in charging documents that Pound’s brother, 36-year-old Curtis Warren, admitted that he shot Pounds and disclosed the location of a gun.
Warren has been charged with first-degree murder and related charges. A motive was not disclosed. More on Philly.com
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
Gun Deaths in the United States 