HollyMatkinPerry Hall, MD – Each of the four juveniles involved in the murder of Baltimore County Police Officer Amy Caprio were arrested using the slain officer’s own handcuffs, the department confirmed on Wednesday afternoon.
“Officer Caprio’s handcuffs were placed on every single one of the suspects,” Baltimore County Public Information Officer Jennifer Peach told Blue Lives Matter.
Dawnta Harris, 16, was arrested “almost immediately” after he struck 29-year-old Officer Caprio with a stolen Jeep on Monday, Police Chief Terrence Sheridan said during a press conference.
“The medical examiner has ruled homicide,” Chief Sheridan added. “Cause of death is multiple traumas to the head and torso.”
Harris was charged as an adult with first-degree murder, and is being held without bond at the Baltimore County Detention Center, according to the department.
Police arrested the remaining three suspects on Tuesday.
Eugene Genius, 17, was apprehended at 8:40 a.m.
At 8:53 a.m., police arrested 16-year-old Derrick Matthews.
Darrell Ward, 15, was taken into custody at 9:31 a.m.
All three were automatically waived to adult status, and have been charged with first-degree murder under the felony murder law, as well as first-degree burglary, police said.
Officer Caprio was murdered in the line of duty on Monday afternoon after she intercepted the carload of burglary suspects.
Court documents said that Harris admitted to investigators that he was driving a Jeep Wrangler, and that he was waiting in the vehicle while Genius, Matthews, and Ward committed a residential burglary.
“They used forced entry to get into a home, threw a rock through a window, went inside stealing jewelry, cash, anything they could get their hands on,” Chief Sheridan said.
Officer Caprio was dispatched to the neighborhood to investigate a report of a suspicious vehicle, when she encountered Harris.
Harris said he attempted to flee, but ended up in a cul-de-sac.
Officer Caprio pursued him, then exited her patrol vehicle and demanded that Harris get out of the Jeep, court documents said.
Harris said he opened the driver’s door partway, but that he closed the door again, and “drove at the officer,” the report read.
Bodycam footage showed that Officer Caprio fired her duty weapon at her attacker, just before he fatally struck her with the vehicle, police said. Harris then fled the scene.
Investigators located a bullet hole in the front windshield of the abandoned Jeep, the department said in the press release.
Officer Caprio would have marked her fourth anniversary with the Baltimore County Police Department in July, WBAL reported.
She was the first female officer to die in the line of duty in the history of the department.
Chief Sheridan said that Officer Caprio was “the type of officer that you want to hire,” and that he believed she was “going to go up in this organization and lead at some time in the future.”
“She would be a leader here,” he said.