BALTIMORE — Baltimore County police said a 16-year-old has been arrested and charged as an adult in the death of a police officer on Monday, and three other suspects — all teenage males — are in custody.
Court records show the 16-year-old is is Dawnta Anthony Harris, of the 1600 block of Vincent Court, in the Gilmor Homes complex in West Baltimore. He is charged with first-degree murder and is expected to appear in Towson district court for a bail review hearing Tuesday afternoon. He did not have an attorney listed in online court records, and family members could not be immediately reached for comment.
Charging documents in the case identify the officer who was killed as Amy Caprio. The department has only identified her as a four-year veteran of the force assigned to the Parkville precinct.
The documents say Caprio was responding to a call around 2 p.m. Monday on Linwen Way to investigate a suspicious vehicle in the area. A 911 caller reported a black Jeep Wrangler near her home, and said three “suspicious subjects got out of it and were walking around homes.” The caller said then said the suspects had broken into the home, and that the first arriving officer was on the ground after confronting the driver of the Jeep.
The Jeep was later found abandoned nearby, in front of a home in the 9500 block of Dawnvale Road in Nottingham, and officers located Harris about a block from where the Jeep was parked, the documents said. Harris was later interviewed at police headquarters, where he admitted to investigators that he was sitting in the driver seat while the three other suspects committed a burglary.
He told officers he saw Caprio drive up the block and that she got out of her car and demanded that the get out of the Jeep. Instead, he “drove at the officer,” the documents said.
The search for the remaining suspects, who police considered armed and dangerous, extended into the evening and left nearly 2,000 students stranded in their schools until parents were allowed to pick them up about 7:30 p.m.
Police would not confirm whether the Jeep had been stolen, but they believe it was also involved in an earlier burglary.
Detectives have verified that the group were involved in burglaries in the area, police said. Officers will be in the area Tuesday to canvass for property stolen during the burglaries.
On Monday, police said the officer was critically injured, but did not describe what happened to her. She was taken to MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 2:50 p.m., police spokesman Cpl. Shawn Vinson said.
A resident of the neighborhood told The Baltimore Sun his son saw the officer struck by a vehicle.
Tony Kurek, 54, had just walked in the door of his home when his son, Dakota, shouted for him. “‘Dad, Dad, a cop just got run over out front,’ “ the father recalled his son saying.
The officer was lying in the road in front of his house, he said. Dakota told his father he had seen the officer draw her gun on a black Jeep Wrangler and ordered the people inside to get out.
Instead, the driver sped forward, ramming the officer with the vehicle. She landed about 20 feet away. “She basically landed almost in front of my mailbox,” Kurek said.
Tony Kurek called 911. He screamed expletives into the phone: “You got a cop laying in the road dying,” he told them.
Another son, Logan, a volunteer firefighter, began doing CPR.
Tony Kurek said he “won’t soon forget” the look on the officer’s eyes as his son worked to revive her. “I had a very, very bad feeling that she was going or gone.”
“She was young. It just breaks your heart,” he said.
Kurek said glass and one shell casing were found outside, and that his son and neighbors had heard the pop of shots fired. But he didn’t know whether the officer or someone in the car had pulled the trigger.
A man who identified himself as the officer’s husband spoke on 105.7 The Fan, The Norris & Long Show Tuesday morning.
“I’m just still grieving. I don’t know, I just feel like talking about it is definitely better than not,” Tim Caprio told Ed Norris, one of the show’s hosts and a former Baltimore city police commissioner.
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(The Baltimore Sun’s Talia Richman and Pamela Wood contributed to this story.)
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