A new report from the Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s Independent Investigations Division sheds light on the Baltimore State Attorney’s Office’s decision not to charge Baltimore police in a June 2023 shootout involving 40-year-old Darryl Gamble perished.
In a shootout a few blocks north of Patterson Park, Gamble fired more than 30 shots, while five officers fired 51, according to the report, which summarizes the evidence and discusses possible charges and defenses but offers no opinion.
Gamble and his vehicle were wanted in connection with an attempted murder when he was spotted by four officers stopped at a Royal Farms on East Fayette Street on June 29, 2023. The officers began following him in an unmarked black Ford Fusion police car, the report said. Officers attempted to follow Gamble on East Fayette but lost sight of him around 5:30 p.m., according to the report citing body camera footage.
About 40 seconds later and about a half-mile away at the intersection of East Fayette and Lakewood streets, another officer in an unmarked SUV spotted Gamble, who got out of his car and shot at the officer’s passenger window, according to the report. Five officers on foot then surrounded Gamble near the 1400 block of North Milton Avenue in the Patterson Park and Patterson Place neighborhoods. Private security camera footage captured Gamble opening fire with a handgun before falling backwards. He was trying to get a gun from a backpack when officers opened fire, and Stephen Romey radioed just before 5:32 p.m. that the suspect had been downed, the report said. A doctor pronounced him dead at 5:41 p.m
The officers, Matthew Banocy, Nicholas DeJesus, Austin Gutridge, Connor Johnson and Nevin Nolte, fired at least five bullets each, and Gamble was shot 15 times.
The report said the officers could have been charged with excessive force, second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.
The Independent Investigation Division concluded its investigation on December 8 and sent the report to the Baltimore City State’s Attorney on December 20. In May, the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office said the charges were dismissed because officers chased a wanted person who fled and fired a gun. against officers as ‘the first aggressor’. Police officers shot Gamble in response to his gunfire and were justified in using deadly force, prosecutors wrote.
