By Justin Fenton
The Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — A man was shot by city police yesterday morning after he reached for an officer’s handgun during a drug stop, police said.
Sterling Clifford, a police spokesman, said three officers on dirt bikes were in the 700 block of Lennox St. in the Reservoir Hill area about 10:45 a.m. when they approached an apartment complex and stopped to interview a man who they believed was involved in drug activity.
Police said the man began to fight with the officers, and the altercation moved into an apartment stairwell. Clifford said the man grabbed at an officer’s gun, and the officer fired at the man. The man, hit in the shoulder, was taken to a hospital with a wound that was not considered life-threatening, Clifford said.
Police identified the man as Alexander Shedrick, 23, and said they recovered a “substantial” number of drug vials called “red tops.” He is out on bail after being indicted Aug. 1 on drug charges.
The officers were part of what Clifford described as a three-district effort to curb drug activity in the area, which includes parts of the Central, Western and Northern districts. The officer who fired the shot was not identified yesterday.
Crowds stood around the apartment complex as police secured the scene, some of them near a streetlight that had the word “Murda” spray-painted on it. At least 10 police cars and six dirt bikes responded.
George Wormley, 49, said he was walking through the area before the shooting when officers on dirt bikes suddenly pulled up on either side of the apartment complex and began asking people for identification.
He said he heard a pop and turned around, observing a shirtless man handcuffed on the ground.
“They were wrestling with him, and he had handcuffs on,” Wormley said. He and Alethea Hanson, 54, said they saw an officer kicking the man and watched other officers restrain him.
About the same time, officers responded to the 200 block of E. Lafayette Ave. at Guilford Avenue to reports that shots had been fired, but they could not find a victim or suspects. Spent shell casings were collected from the sidewalk by technicians.
Copyright 2008 The Baltimore Sun