Baltimore County officers won’t face charges in pursuit that ended in deadly I-695 crash

Dillon Mullen

The Baltimore Sun

October 22, 2023

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office will not charge the five Baltimore County Police officers who triggered a pursuit that ended in a deadly crash on Interstate 695 in April.

Officers spotted a stolen car in a hotel parking lot in the 1800 block of Belmont Avenue in Windsor Mill and watched a man enter the car and exit the parking lot around 12:15 a.m. April 8, the attorney general’s office said. Around six minutes later, the driver crashed into another car, killing a woman.

Body-worn camera videos from two county officers showed a car peeling out of a hotel parking lot before police cruisers with lights and sirens blaring followed the driver, according to the videos. The pursuit lasted 3 minutes and 2.4 miles, according to the attorney general’s office, and officers drove between 67 and 91 mph.

The driver was going around 55 mph on Liberty Road when he turned on the Exit 18 ramp to I-695 in the wrong direction and smashed head-on into a sedan driven by Dimeka Thornton. The 37-year-old Coppin State University graduate, who worked at the Social Security Administration and sang in the Baltimore Bible Church choir, died at a hospital.

Police did not follow the driver onto I-695 but responded to the scene of the crash around 12:21 a.m., according to the attorney general’s office. A crash report by state police determined that both cars were traveling at around the same speed, according to the attorney general’s office.

The driver suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was charged with manslaughter and driving while impaired. In a 13-page report about the incident, the attorney general’s office said it considered negligent manslaughter by vehicle charges for the officers.

“There is insufficient evidence to prove that they drove their vehicles in a criminally negligent manner,” the attorney general’s office wrote in the report. “Accordingly, each of the subject officers’ decisions to engage in the pursuit did not create an unjustifiable risk that was a gross deviation from the reasonable standard of care and, therefore, was not criminally negligent.”

The attorney general’s office’s Independent Investigations Division identified the five officers involved as Sgt. Ferguson, who has 19 years of service in the Baltimore County Police Department; Officer Daley, with 17 years; Officer Marrero and Officer Hadel, both with seven years; and Officer Creter, who has four years. All of the officers are assigned to the department’s Operations Bureau, the office said.