By Heather Rawlyk
The Capital
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A man who shot at two county police officers — barely missing their heads — during a barricade last spring was found not criminally responsible and freed from jail yesterday, just hours after he pleaded guilty to the crime.
Michael Puckett, 25, of Oak Springs Drive in Glen Burnie, pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted second-degree murder in Circuit Court in Annapolis before Judge Paul A. Hackner.
But the state’s doctors said he was not criminally liable for the shooting. They said Puckett was having an psychotic episode due to withdrawal from an anti-anxiety medication when he shot at police in the early morning hours of April 27.
Puckett, who has been held at Jennifer Road Detention Center in Parole, was released fromjail following yesterday’s hearing and committed to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene on an outpatient basis. He was released on the condition he does not use drugs or alcohol and submits to random drug testing until the health agency says otherwise, Hackner said.
Puckett called police about 3:30 a.m. April 27 and said people in his neighborhood were trying to harm him, said Assistant State’s Attorney Brian Marsh.
When Cpl. Michael Hruska went to the man’s home to investigate, Puckett told him a person in a green truck was after him.
The corporal noticed Puckett was “a little off” and asked if he was on drugs or alcohol. Puckett said he was not. Hruska told Puckett he did not see a green truck when he drove through the neighborhood, and that he’d keep checking the home.
About 45 minutes after the officer left, police got a second call, this time from a woman who lived in a house that backed up to Puckett’s. She reported she awoke to a loud pop, turned on the light and saw a bullet hole in the wall.
Hruska and Cpl. John Heiser responded to her home, then knocked on Puckett’s door. The officers were on Puckett’s front porch when they saw him through a narrow window next to the front door holding a gun.
Puckett fired three to four shots at the officers, breaking the glass. The officers took cover and were not struck.
“Those shots literally whizzed by the officers’ heads,” Maj. Tom Wilson, the commander of patrol services division, said in April. “And one round apparently nicked a railing on the stoop and ricocheted away. Fortunately it did not hit one of the officers.”
A barricade continued for more than three hours, until police contacted Puckett by telephone and persuaded him to come outside. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest but was not armed.
Police found an AK-47 assault rifle, and .380 caliber and 9 mm handguns in the home. Marsh did not know which weapon Puckett used to fire at police.
When questioned by officers, Puckett mentioned an individual sneaking around, then made mention of his girlfriend and child being home at the time, which they were not. He said he took a large amount of Tylenol PM pills in an attempt to commit suicide, prompting police to take him to the hospital. Doctors found elevated amounts of Tylenol in Puckett’s system but no other drugs or alcohol.
Doctors at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center evaluated Puckett and learned he was no longer taking his legally prescribed Xanax medication after running out of the drug.
The withdrawal of benzodiazepine caused Puckett to suffer a psychotic episode the day he shot at police, Marsh said.
Doctors determined Puckett does not present a danger to himself or others, and that the episode was an aberration caused by withdrawal.
Puckett is the second man this week to be deemed not criminally responsible for a violent crime.
On Monday, Michael Jovante Johnson, 22, who is schizophrenic, entered an Alford plea to first-degree assault, stemming from a 2010 attack of an Anne Arundel Community College student on the Baltimore & Annapolis Trail near Marley Station mall. He was committed to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
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