Slain Baltimore Police Detective Laid to Rest

BALTIMORE -- The funeral for Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter, who was fatally shot while investigating a previous killing in West Baltimore earlier this month, is underway at the Mount Pleasant Church and Ministries in Cedonia.

Honor guard officers from jurisdictions throughout Maryland stand down after guarding and saluting the casket of fallen @BaltimorePolice Detective Sean Suiter. How many friends, family and fellow officers are saying goodbye live on @FOXBaltimore pic.twitter.com/HWaGC3arpZ

— Stephanie Woods (@StephWoodsNews) November 29, 2017

Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, Mayor Catherine Pugh and Gov. Larry Hogan were all scheduled to speak, as were fellow officers and detectives and members of Suiter’s family, according to a program for the service provided by police.

Suiter, 43, was an 18-year veteran of the police force who also served in the Army. He was a husband and father of five children.

The service, which is scheduled at 11 a.m., will be presided over by Bishop Clifford Johnson.

On Tuesday, Hogan called Suiter’s death “a tragic situation” and said he had been in near-constant communication with the Police Department and had had “a very long and difficult conversation with Detective Suiter’s widow right after the tragic shooting.”

“I immediately offered our thoughts and prayers, and our concerns,” Hogan said.

At the funeral, Hogan said, he would do his best to honor Suiter, whom he called a hero.

“It’s a very difficult situation, but we’re providing whatever assistance we can to the family of the fallen officer and to his fellow officers, his law enforcement family at the Baltimore Police Department,” Hogan said.

The funeral will be followed by a funeral procession that could draw thousands of police officers and will shut down portions of interstates 95, 695 and 83, among other roads in the Baltimore area, between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., the State Highway Administration said.

From Mount Pleasant Church on Radecke Avenue, the procession will head southeast on Chesaco Avenue, cross the bridge over I-95, then turn northeast on Horst Road, where it will use an emergency access road near Rosedale Plaza to enter I-95 North, according to the SHA.

It will then take the outer loop of the Baltimore Beltway to I-83 North to Padonia Road en route to Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens, where Suiter is to be buried.

Police have said Suiter was shot in the head in the 900 block of Bennett Place in Harlem Park on Nov. 15 after he and another detective noticed a “suspicious person” in a vacant lot and Suiter approached him.

Suiter was killed with his own gun at close range, and the weapon was recovered from the scene. Suiter was still clutching his radio in his left hand. He made a brief, unintelligible transmission over his radio in which gunfire can be heard.

Davis said he believes Suiter was involved in a brief and violent struggle.

“Based on the evidence we have, that we’ve been able to glean from the scene, someone took Detective Suiter’s life when he ran into this alleyway acting as a police officer, trying to accomplish something,” police spokesman T.J. Smith said Tuesday. “We don’t know what that was.”

Police have not named the partner who was with Suiter at the time, but The Baltimore Sun has identified the officer through sources as Detective David Bomenka.

Davis said Suiter’s paretner was "in the immediate vicinity" when the shooting broke out, and later said he appears on surveillance camera footage taking cover across the street. Bomenka did not have a radio but quickly called 911 from his cellphone.

The killing of an on-duty officer has never gone unsolved in the Police Department’s history, though police have said little about leads on a suspect in Suiter’s case.

A $215,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest.

The night before Thanksgiving, police disclosed that Suiter was killed on the eve of his scheduled testimony before a federal grand jury investigating the Gun Trace Task Force, a squad of city police officers who have been indicted for robbing citizens, among other offenses. That makes Suiter’s death not just the killing of a police officer, but also of a federal witness in a police corruption case.

Davis said police have no reason to believe Suiter’s death is connected to his testimony, calling the attack “spontaneous.”

Some outside observers have suggested the department should turn the investigation over to the FBI, though city officials have rejected that idea — saying they are handling the case while also working with federal partners.

Hogan said Tuesday that he has “a lot of confidence” in Davis, but that “at some point, obviously, the more eyes we have on this, the better.”

“I believe that the FBI is in the city and working together with them, but they have not taken over the case from the city, and you know that’s something I’m not sure needs to happen at this point,” Hogan said. “I don’t want to interfere with an ongoing investigation, or make a comment on something that I don’t have the facts on. But I know that the FBI is talking with them and working with them on the case.”

Baltimore Sun reporters Justin Fenton, Erin Cox and Colin Campbell contributed to this article.

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