WOODLAWN, Md. — A Baltimore County police lieutenant won't face criminal charges for his involvement in a deadly shootout with a robbery suspect last October.
In a newly released report from the Maryland Attorney General's Office, Jovan Singleton was found to have fired at Lieutenant Gregory Mead first before being shot and killed.
Singleton had allegedly been involved in an armed robbery at a Woodlawn 7-Eleven earlier that night.
He and multiple other suspects tried fleeing the scene in a pickup truck but got into a hit-and-run crash about a mile away from the robbery.
Mead was first to respond to the crash. On his way, he noticed Singleton walking near Gilmore Street and Englewood Avenue. According to Mead, Singleton matched the description of one of the 7-Eleven robbery suspects.
When Mead tried stopping Singleton, he took off running.
At some point, Singleton fired at least one shot at Mead, who was giving chase. Mead shot back eight times.
According to the report, Mead injured his knee so severely during the incident that he thought he'd been shot for a while.
“I’m hit. I’m down. Shots fired,” Mead shouted on his police radio at the time of the incident.
Doctors ultimately concluded that he had not been struck by gunfire.
As for Singleton, it took approximately five hours for police to find his body in the side yard of a home in the neighborhood.
He'd been shot in the right side of his upper back. About 50 feet away from Singleton's body was a .380 caliber handgun with his DNA on it. Police recovered one shell casing fired from that weapon.
Investigators are still unsure if Singleton was advancing or fleeing when Mead began shooting.
Either way, they determined that "Mead reasonably believed Singleton posed an imminent or immediate danger of death or serious bodily harm. The amount of force used was reasonable in the circumstances."
Three other unidentified suspects were also later taken into custody for their alleged involvement in the robbery and hit and run.
