New details revealed in Baltimore police investigation of Detective Sean Suiter's death
When
Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter was shot in West Baltimore last fall, responding officers found their dying colleague lying face down in a vacant lot. Heâd been shot once in the head â and his freshly fired service weapon was beneath his body.
Moments before his death, surveillance cameras showed, Suiter had paced back and forth on the street. Then he darted out of view and into the lot where three shots rang out.
This and other previously undisclosed evidence, described by sources to The Baltimore Sun, lies behind contradictory theories within the police department about Suiterâs still unsolved killing.
Some say the evidence â including the location of the gun, the pacing as though preparing himself â suggests Suiter could have committed suicide staged to look like a murder.
But others see that interpretation as an easy out for the department in a stalled case. They point to other evidence as bolstering their view that Suiter likely scuffled with an assailant before his death.
Sources say the bullet that ultimately killed Suiter entered behind his right ear and traveled forward, exiting from his left temple. The path of the bullet is not typical of a suicide, some note.
In this view, dirt found on Suiterâs clothing, an unintelligible transmission over his radio, and the two other shots from his gun all support the theory that he struggled with an assailant who has eluded detection. Police have said Suiter was killed with his own gun, though the shooting could have happened during such a struggle.
âThe realistic version of this is that there are two things that are possible: suicide and murder,â one source said. âI could convince anybody why itâs a murder, and I could convince anybody why itâs a suicide.â
Suiterâs death is one of the only unsolved killings of a police officer in the Baltimore departmentâs history. New Police Commissioner Darryl De Sousa has said he is preparing to open the case to outside investigators for an independent review. He has declined to share his opinion.
The detective was
shot the day before he was to give testimony before a federal grand jury investigating Baltimoreâs corrupt Gun Trace Task Force. Suiter was not a target of that investigation, police have said.
The Sun has not viewed the surveillance footage or other evidence in Suiterâs killing â which includes body-camera footage from the first officers who reached his side â but spoke with five law enforcement sources knowledgeable about it. These sources had different interpretations.
The new details help to explain public comments made by police that previously lacked context.
Âť Sources say Suiterâs partner that day, Detective David Bomenka, told investigators he did not see the shooting, but saw Suiter just after and there was no suspect in sight. That prompted concerns the shots could have been fired from the windows of a home, and led police to lock down the area for days.
Âť Sources say police received a tip that a woman was harboring a suspect who had been injured during the shooting. The tip did not pan out.
Âť Police said publicly at the time that they believed Suiter had been attacked, and that the suspect had been wounded. Sources say that was based on blood found in the vacant lot where the shooting occurred. One blood spot turned out to be from an animal, but another was linked to a drug user. He was located, interviewed and discounted as a suspect, sources say.
Âť Days after the shooting, during a deeper search of the vacant lot, then-Police Commissioner
Kevin Davis said he was âvery encouragedâ by the discovery of new evidence. Sources say it was a bullet found embedded in the dirt, which investigators at first believed could be from a suspectâs gun. After testing, police concluded it was the fatal bullet but came from Suiterâs gun.
The evidence sheds new light on a case that began as a manhunt for a killer with authorities dangling a six-figure reward. Now itâs a case with no leads and subject to competing views. Officially, Suiterâs death was ruled a homicide by the state medical examinerâs office and continues to be investigated that way.
Family and friends of Suiter say thereâs no way he took his own life, and say such speculation is without merit and undermines the search for his killer. They say he was a good cop, a happy father of five who showed no signs of distress. They believe some within the police department want his cause of death changed because detectives have failed to solve the case.
Suiter was shot about 4:30 p.m. Nov. 15 in a vacant lot in the notoriously violent 900 block of Bennett Place in Harlem Park. He was in the area doing a follow-up investigation of a triple homicide, and was accompanied by Bomenka. Bomenka said Suiter did not act unusual while they were together, sources say.
Before the shooting, sources say, Suiter took a call from his lawyer about meeting that evening to go over his appearance before the federal grand jury the next day. His lawyer declined to comment for this article, citing attorney-client privilege.
Police have said that 20 minutes before the shooting, Suiter and Bomenka saw a man who was acting suspiciously. That observation formed the basis for a vague suspect description â a black man wearing a black jacket with a white stripe â released by the department.
Suiter directed Bomenka to a position around the corner from the vacant lot. Sources say surveillance footage shows the two separate, with Suiter pacing back and forth near the entrance to the lot. The footage shows Suiter darting into the lot suddenly, gun in right hand and his radio in his left hand. Some say that shows he was pursuing a suspect. Others say his pacing suggests he was building himself up to carry out the act.
Upon hearing shots, Bomenka ran back toward the lot, taking cover behind a tree across the street. A source described what Bomenka could see of the lot from his new vantage point as just a âslice of the pieâ â an angled position where Bomenka could partially see Suiter, but not what was, or wasnât, right next to him.
Bomenkaâs movements are confirmed on surveillance video, sources say.
He did not have his radio with him, and called 911 from his cell phone. He did not approach Suiter until responding officers arrived.
What took place in the lot is estimated to have lasted eight seconds or less.
Once back-up arrived, body-camera footage shows the responding patrol officers approached Suiter as he lay in the lot and turned him over. The cameras captured key information as to how he was found â his pants dirty, his gun beneath him, his radio still in his hand â before the officers picked him up and put him into a patrol car to be rushed to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
Some say there are few scenarios that would prompt a homicide detective to rush a suspect in a lot. Others note that Suiter was a veteran drug cop before joining homicide and would have had no problem mixing it up, speculating he might have wanted to take someone into custody to generate new leads in the triple homicide case.
The apparent pursuit, the radio transmission, the dirt on his clothes and the multiple shots all support the idea that he was engaged in a struggle, proponents of that theory say.
Dirt on Suiterâs knee appeared to have been ground into his pants, as if he was twisting around on the knee before falling, according to some sources. Others said it simply shows he fell to the dirt, and nothing more.
âTo me, thatâs nothing,â one source said. âDirt on the knee tells me one thing only: that he was on the ground.â
Because of the wound path and the fatal bullet being found in the ground, sources agree Suiter likely was shot while in a prone position or as he was going to the ground.
Another source said he struggles with the idea that Suiterâs death was a suicide; if it was, Suiter would have needed âthe presence of mind to act likeâ he was engaging a suspect, knowing Bomenka was close and could possibly see what happened.
A third source noted it was still light out when the shooting occurred; the block where it happened, while mostly vacant, is not abandoned.
âIf youâre going to plan a suicide, youâre gonna do a better job than that,â that source said.
Examinations of Suiterâs computer and phone did not reveal any evidence of preparation for a suicide, police said.
Those who believe the shooting was self-inflicted say there's simply no evidence of a suspect, and the circumstances don't look like a suicide because it needed to appear that he was killed in the line of duty. An officerâs family will not receive certain benefits if he commits suicide.
âThereâs no question the path of entry was within his ability to discharge,â a fourth source said.
