Baltimore Police Department shows Detective Sean Suiter (pictured) was shot in the head with his own gun on Nov 15
Thousands of mourners gathered at a Baltimore church on Wednesday for the funeral of police detective shot to death with his own gun.
Attendees at Detective Sean Suiter’s funeral included Maryland political leaders and numerous law enforcement officials, some traveling as far away as Chicago to honor a fallen colleague and his grieving family.
During the solemn ceremony, held at Mount Pleasant Church, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said the killing of a police officer ‘leaves a stain on our city,’ with Govenor Larry Hogan later remarking that Suiter ‘lived and died a hero.’
The unsolved Nov. 15 shooting of Suiter is the talk of Baltimore, where residents are dissecting details of the case in offices, on street corners and on social media.
A reward of $215,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest of the person who shot the 18-year law enforcement veteran and married father of five.
It’s a homicide investigation, but the version of events offered up by police brass is being increasingly questioned since it came to light that the detective was shot a day before he was set to testify before a federal grand jury probing an elite unit of indicted officers.
Police Commissioner Kevin Davis has emphasized that Suiter, whose Baltimore-area funeral procession was set to close down major roads Wednesday, was not the target of any federal probe and by all accounts was a ‘stellar detective.’
Members of the Maryland State Police march into position past police vehicles outside Baltimore Police Det. Sean Suiter’s funeral at Mount Pleasant Church in Baltimore, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017
Mourners file into a funeral for Baltimore Police Det. Sean Suiter at Mount Pleasant Church in Baltimore on Wednesday
A memorial for Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter, who was fatally shot while investigating a previous killing in West Baltimore earlier this month
Police officers gather around the hearse during the funeral of Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter at Mount Pleasant Church and Ministries in Baltimore, Maryland
A police honor guard stands at attention during the funeral of Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter during his funeral at Mount Pleasant Church and Ministries in Baltimore, Maryland
He said he understands the ‘wild possibilities that go through people’s minds when we all want answers’ but stressed that the evidence refutes any notion that the slaying in a high-crime neighborhood was ‘part of any conspiracy.’
‘There’s no path that we won’t go down if evidence takes us down that path. But right now, the evidence that’s available to us is indicative of a homicide,’ Davis said.
But with the revelation of Suiter’s planned testimony before a grand jury and no arrests even with a $215,000 reward, there appears to be no end in sight to the rumor mill in a city accustomed to watching its streets as the setting for gritty TV crime dramas.
The Baltimore Police Department also has had a tense relationship with many citizens in the majority-black city for decades.
Baltimore and the Justice Department entered into a reform agreement earlier this year after a scathing report by the federal agency outlined widespread police misconduct and abuse.
These undated photos provided by the Baltimore Police Department show, from left, Daniel Hersl, Evodio Hendrix, Jemell Rayam, Marcus Taylor, Maurice Ward, Momodu Gando and Wayne Jenkins – the seven police officers who are facing charges of robbery, extortion and overtime fraud
‘For all the years these cops have been running around here, they can’t catch this guy they say took out one of their own? I don’t believe what they’re saying,’ said Mike Williams, a resident of the blighted Harlem Park neighborhood as he watched a TV crew set up by the lot where Suiter was shot at close range while investigating a 2016 triple homicide.
Located between row houses, the lot now has a small shrine with a dozen American flags and some flowers. The community was on lockdown for days as investigators scoured for evidence and searched the area’s numerous dilapidated, boarded-up homes.
Rumors about Suiter’s killing went into overdrive when Davis confirmed last week that the acting U.S. attorney and FBI informed him that the detective was gunned down shortly before he was to testify in an ongoing probe of a specialized gun recovery unit.
A Maryland State Police honor guard prepares to participate in Baltimore Police Det. Sean Suiter’s funeral at Mount Pleasant Church in Baltimore
Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis (pictured) at a press conference announcing that death of Detective Sean Suiter on November 16
Mayor Catherine Pugh (pictured) said at the ceremony that the killing of a police officer ‘leaves a stain on our city,’ with Govenor Larry Hogan later remarking that Suiter ‘lived and died a hero.’
A hearse carrying Baltimore Police Det. Sean Suiter’s body arrives for his funeral at Mount Pleasant Church in Baltimore, Wednesday
Eight indicted Baltimore officers, including four who have pleaded guilty to racketeering, are accused of defrauding their department, falsifying evidence and shaking down citizens.
The same week Suiter was shot, a Philadelphia officer became the ninth officer indicted in the probe of Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force.
Some people, including gossiping law enforcement officials, have speculated that Suiter might have shot himself, staging a suicide to look like a murder. Others envision a conspiracy where Suiter was labeled a traitor by dirty colleagues for turning against them.
Peter Moskos, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who served as a Baltimore police officer from 1999 to 2001, said he believed that imaginations were mostly running wild.
The timeline of events in the case seem to fall ‘somewhere between standard operational chaos, where they don’t know what happened, and even proper response,’ he said.
But the fact that Suiter was due to testify the day after he was shot appears to be ‘a hell of a coincidence,’ he said.
Deepening the mystery, court records show that the 18-year police veteran had worked on cases with some of the indicted officers. The Baltimore Sun first reported that federal authorities have reopened a 2010 case investigated by Suiter and one of the accused task force officers, Wayne Jenkins, involving a drug arrest and a fatal car collision.
A collection of honor guards stand at attention before Baltimore Police Det. Sean Suiter’s funeral at Mount Pleasant Church in Baltimore, Wednesday
A memorial for Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter, who was fatally shot while investigating a previous killing in West Baltimore earlier this month
A memorial for Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter, who was fatally shot while investigating a previous killing in West Baltimore earlier this month
On the day of Suiter’s shooting, police say he and his partner were working in a particularly rough section of West Baltimore. They wore badges and were dressed in suits and ties, as is standard for detectives.
Davis said Suiter approached a ‘suspicious’ man in a vacant lot, leading to a violent confrontation in which he was shot with his own gun. Private video surveillance shows Suiter’s partner taking cover across the street at the time of the shooting, according to the police commissioner.
Suiter was found clutching his radio with his left hand. A garbled three-second-long radio transmission indicated he was in distress and his clothes had signs of a ‘violent struggle,’ Davis said.
The father of five died at a hospital a day later.
Investigators recovered Suiter’s weapon, which had been fired three times.
Police say they only have the barest outlines of the shooter: A man wearing a black jacket with a white stripe. They believe the attacker might have been wounded and they have searched emergency rooms and doctors’ offices during their manhunt.
With the mystery deepening two weeks since the shooting, there are many in Baltimore who have a hard time believing the official version of events about Suiter’s end.
‘I feel very bad for this man, his family. But it’s also like this where I come from in El Salvador: The story that gets told is not so much the real story,’ said Toni Sanchez, who lives with his family near the lot where Suiter became Baltimore’s latest body to fall in a year that has seen so many.
Baltimore Police Capt. Jarron Jackson wears a black mourning band across his badge before Baltimore Police Det. Sean Suiter’s funeral at Mount Pleasant Church in Baltimore, Wednesday