Man fatally shot by Prince George’s Co. police officer in Chillum
A man was shot and killed by a Prince George’s County police officer during a traffic stop in the Chillum area on Thursday night.
Around 8:40 p.m. Thursday, an officer conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle near 23rd Avenue and Ager Road at East-West Highway. The driver was asked to exit the vehicle as an officer stood with him and a second officer began searching the vehicle.
“As the search progressed, the driver jumped back into his vehicle and began to drive away with the officer still partially in the vehicle,” police said in a social media post.
The officer standing outside the vehicle was “knocked to the ground,” Police Chief George Nader said at a news conference Thursday night.
The other officer was “partially in, partially out of the vehicle” when the driver attempted to flee, Nader said.
That’s when the officer fired and struck the driver, who crashed into a pole. He was transported to a hospital where he later died from his injuries.
“I was just inside doing homework, and then, all of a sudden, my brother goes, ‘I heard something,’ right? ‘Pop, pop, pop,’ then he said he heard gunshots,” said Marvin Arias, who lives on 23rd Avenue. “And then, all of a sudden, everything just went dark.”
Power in the neighborhood went out after the car hit the pole.
“Then, all of a sudden, a bunch of police came in. There are police cars coming from this way or from that way over there,” Arias said, pointing in either direction. “They came out with their guns and then later on, they also took out the rifles, because I’m assuming that they thought that they were in danger.”
The two officers sustained “significant but non-life-threatening injuries” and were transported for treatment at a hospital.
Nader said a “large amount of marijuana” was found inside the car in a laundry bag.
The Maryland Attorney General Office’s Independent Investigations Division will investigate the incident. No further details were confirmed from requests from WTOP.
Below is map of the area where the shooting happened: