LAUREL, Md. — A Maryland attorney general investigation into the Howard County Police Department was underway Sunday, after what started as a domestic violence 911 call turned into a deadly shootout between police and a man that officers said was holding a shotgun in Laurel.
Witnesses told police on Saturday that a man had blasted a shotgun through front door of a house on 10000 block of American Pharoah Lane at around 3 p.m., after banging repeatedly on the front door.
Howard County officers stood outside the house as their suspect loomed over them from a second-floor window, holding what officers said was a "long gun." Meanwhile, three people including one woman were trapped inside, according to the Maryland AG's office.
"According to body camera footage, a responding officers encountered a female victim on an outside ledge of the house and an adult male suspect at a window inside the residence," Howard County Police said on Sunday.
The standoff between the Howard County Police Department and the man ended in a shootout at around 5:40 p.m., according to state investigators the suspect would not drop his shotgun when asked.
Police then moved into the house and found the man had been killed in the shootout. All the other people inside the house were evacuated without any injuries, according to the Maryland AG.
HCPD officers had been wearing body cameras, the Independent Investigations Division of Maryland said they would likely release that footage within the next 20 days. Names of the suspect who had been killed by police and the officers who fired at him would likely be released within two days.
