Baltimore, MD — Last November, Baltimore City Police Detective Sean Suiter was shot and killed while on duty the day before he was set to testify against dirty cops in the department. Now, nearly a year later, the panel responsible for investigating the case have ruled his death a suicide, because they claimed they could not find any evidence of a second person in the area.
Not only was Suiter set to testify in a massive corruptions case the day after his shooting but his partner was off work that day and the commissioner lied about this important detail in a press conference where he revealed the details of the case to the media.
The man who filled in as Suiter’s partner on the day of his death is friends with one of the officers who Suiter was set to testify against. On November 22, Commissioner Davis made the claim to the media that Suiter was with his partner at the time of the shooting.
However, back on November 16th, the Baltimore Sun reported that Det. Jonathan Jones was Suiter’s partner in the homicide unit, and that Jones happened to be off from work the day of the shooting. They even did an interview with him about his relationship with Suiter.
According to the police, Suiter and his replacement partner were looking for a witness from an old case when they allegedly noticed a “person acting suspiciously,” Suiter chased after the suspect and was shot and killed when he passed through an alleyway by himself. The only description that the other officer on the scene gave was that it was a black man in a black hoodie with a white stripe on it.
There is still no explanation as to where the other officer on the scene was at the time of the shooting. Swarms of police were instantly on the scene, with a helicopter circling overhead and somehow the suspect managed to get away.
The police then put half of the city on lockdown for over four days, sparking national controversy and fears of martial law. Local publications reported that Baltimore was turned into an “open-air prison,” and the ACLU of Maryland released a statement at the time saying that they were “troubled by reports that some persons entering or leaving the area have been subject to pat-down searches and that non-residents have been barred from entering the area.”
Now, we are told that this entire lockdown, martial law, and full on police state was over a suicide—despite his supposed partner mentioning a suspect in a hoodie. We are now supposed to believe that Suiter took off chasing a suspect and in the middle of the chase, he suddenly took out his own gun and shot himself. Seriously.
Casting further doubt on the official story is the fact that it was initially reported that had been shot behind the right ear, with the angle of the bullet traveling forward.
The Baltimore City Medical Examiner even determined that the death was the result of a homicide after completing the autopsy. Another interesting angle is that a suicide ruling could greatly diminish any type of financial support or pension that Suiter’s family is entitled to receive from the city. The case that Suiter was supposed to testify in involves eight Baltimore cops with the city’s elite gun task force, who were accused of shaking down citizens and conspiring with drug dealers.
Former Detective Daniel Hersl was among the worst offenders in the task force, and his name was notorious on the streets of Baltimore. So notorious was his name, that he was called out by a local rapper long before his crimes were made public. Baltimore rapper Kevron Evans, AKA Young Moose, says that he was regularly harassed by Hersl, which put a significant strain on his life and career.
Detective Hersl also arrested independent journalist Ford Fischer for peacefully filming and doing his job as a reporter during the Baltimore riots in 2015. After the trial was over, 8 officers were convicted on various corruptions charges.
It is highly unlikely that a cop would kill himself in the middle of chasing down a suspect, especially when they are set to testify against other cops in the department the next day. In this case, all of the top suspects should be Baltimore city cops, but there is no indication that the review board or anyone investigating this case ever explored this possibility.
