Officer William H. Torbit Jr.

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Witnesses: Slain officer overwhelmed by crowd, police fired as he lay on ground. Police say 41 shots fired in incident outside club Sunday
From a Franklin Street apartment, a university employee and her roommate have a broad view of the nightclub parking lot where police say six people were shot Sunday—an incident that left a plainclothes police officer and a 22-year-old man dead. As an unusually large crowd attracted a significant police presence, the two opened a window and watched the events that led up to the shooting outside the Select Lounge in the 400 block of N. Paca St. The women, both 26, saw the plainclothes officer get overwhelmed by an unruly crowd, then watched as two uniformed officers opened fire while he lay on the ground. The women also saw the pained reaction of the slain officer's partners once they realized what had happened. It's a scene they haven't been able to get out of their minds. "I've never seen somebody killed," the university employee said Monday. City police have not given a detailed account of the night's events, saying the investigation will take three weeks to complete. There are dozens of witnesses, and police are seeking to piece together those accounts along with physical evidence and surveillance camera footage. However, the women's account is in line with what police sources think actually happened, and when combined with their information, it provides a vivid account of the chaotic incident. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III confirmed at an afternoon news conference that no civilian weapons were fired and said five officers, including slain Officer William H. Torbit Jr., fired a total of 41 rounds during the incident. Bealefeld said the police were "committed to conducting a comprehensive and thorough investigation." "We must understand it, learn from it, and emerge better," he said. "We owe it to all the victims to be thorough and complete and only release confirmed facts." Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the shooting "raises a lot of questions" and that she and Bealefeld are open to an external review of the incident following the Police Department's internal review. The university employee, who did not want her name or school made public, and her roommate, Lakeisha Hutcherson, said in separate interviews with The Baltimore Sun that the incident unfolded about 1:15 a.m. According to the roommates, they first noticed a group of women walking to their cars outside the club when a vehicle began to pull out and almost hit one of them. One of the women became angry and began to hit the car with her shoe, trying to attack the driver, and a man in a pink shirt attempted to calm them down. The driver was able to pull off, but the woman remained agitated. A man—who the roommates would later learn was Torbit, 33—walked over, wearing a brown or black jacket. Neither woman said they saw a badge, though they said he might have been wearing one. Police say Torbit, a narcotics officer, was on-duty and in plainclothes. Normally an officer on such an assignment would not be working crowd control, but he had been called to the scene after dispatchers put out a "Signal 13"—that code, for an officer in distress, typically draws scores of officers looking to help. Officers at the scene were trying to deal with fights inside that spilled out of the recently opened club, and Torbit found himself in the middle of the fracas. "I thought he was just a guy trying to break up the altercation," the university employee said. "He was telling them, 'Stop. Go home.'" Hutcherson added: "He was trying to push people out of the way, trying to stop the fight. He was trying to make peace, and it seemed like some guys took it wrong." In a flash, they said, a large crowd began fighting and "overtook" the plainclothes officer, who disappeared in a sea of people. Sean Gamble, the 22-year-old victim, has been named by family members. His brother told The Baltimore Sun Sunday night that Gamble had witnessed Torbit being aggressive toward a woman and that Gamble started arguing with him. That escalated to an altercation, the brother said. The women say that is not what they saw. "I didn't see [the plainclothes officer] being aggressive with her—she was aggressive," the university employee said. "It looked like he was trying to break it up, to stop it from escalating. I don't even know how the other guys got involved." Then the women saw two uniformed officers approach and heard a shot. They aren't sure who fired the shot—it was not the uniformed officers, the roommates said—and none of those fighting seemed to react. It is believed that the shot came from Torbit's weapon, though police said they are checking ballistics to confirm that. A few seconds later, a second shot went off, the roommates said, and people started running.

Officer One Of Two Killed At Club
Sources: Police Investigating Whether Shooting Was Friendly Fire
Baltimore Sun reporter Timothy Wheeler contributed to this article
Justin Fenton 
Jan 10, 2011

Baltimore police officers might have shot and killed a fellow officer and an unarmed man after observing the officer draw his weapon while trying to quell a disturbance outside a club near downtown early Sunday, according to law enforcement sources and a relative of one of the victims. Police released few details about the circumstances of the shooting, but they described a chaotic scene outside the Select Lounge in the 400 block of N. Paca St., with fights spilling out of the club and into the street around 1:15 a.m. "There was an altercation that took place very near the club, and some officers worked to intercede in that fight, at which time some gunshots were discharged," said Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III. "Several officers fired multiple shots." Sources said Officer William H. Torbit Jr., 33, an eight-year veteran, and 22-year-old Sean Gamble, a semi-professional football player who had no criminal record, were killed in the gunfire. Four others—a second officer and three women—were wounded, police said. Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, three law enforcement sources briefed on the case spoke on the condition of anonymity. They claimed that witnesses told detectives that Torbit was wearing plainclothes and was under attack from a group of people. Police said his badge apparently came off during the scuffle. It is believed that the officers who responded to the scene shot at him after he drew his weapon, said the law enforcement sources and the victim's relative, who was also a witness. Gamble's brother, James Gamble, who was at the club, said he saw Torbit, who he believed was off-duty, acting aggressively toward a woman. His brother started arguing with the officer, and the discussion escalated, said Gamble, 24. He said a group of uniformed officers began firing on the crowd when the plainclothes officer reached for his service weapon. "It was a crazy scene," Gamble said. "They let off a good 20 shots, maybe six [officers]. They were just shooting." Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi confirmed Sunday evening that police were exploring whether officers had shot another officer in the midst of the chaotic situation. He said no civilian weapons had been recovered. The violence comes on the heels of a number of high-profile incidents downtown, many of them connected to the city's nightlife. In March, two people were shot outside the Velvet Rope, a club that police have pushed to shut down. A month before that, a security guard was fatally shot on Light Street, and in June, an off-duty police officer was charged with fatally shooting an unarmed man during an altercation outside a Mount Vernon club. A Marine, celebrating before his redeployment to Afghanistan, was fatally shot at a downtown hookah bar in July, and a city police officer was shot and wounded in November after approaching an armed man near the city's adult entertainment district. An off-duty Baltimore detective was killed in October when he was hit in the head during an argument over a parking space in Canton. "This is an absolutely horrible incident," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said of Sunday's shootings. "I prayed we would never lose another officer, but here we are again." Torbit's death comes four years to the day after Officer Troy Lamont Chesley was killed during an attempted carjacking. Chesley was the last officer to die in an attack while on duty. Since the 2008 death of off-duty officer Norman Stamp at a bar in Southeast Baltimore, if police find that Torbit died as a result of friendly fire, it would be the first such incident. Police said at the time that officers responding to a call about a fight encountered Stamp, whom they didn't recognize as a fellow officer, wearing brass knuckles, and shot him when he reached for his weapon. Stamp's widow last year lost a civil lawsuit filed against the officer who shot her husband. Police would not confirm Torbit's identity Sunday, and police union officials said they were waiting for the department to formally identify the officer before commenting on his death. News of Torbit's death stunned his next-door neighbor, Fafo Asres, who called the officer "a very nice person" who had helped maintain his neighborhood off Rolling Road in western Baltimore County. Torbit cleaned up trash and debris on the street and offered to haul waste items away in his truck for other residents, Asres said.

Torbit had also kidded around with Asres' children, the neighbor said. "My kids love him and call him 'Uncle Will,'" Asres said, adding that Torbit was "a very good example" for young people. Though Torbit apparently lived alone, his neighbor described the officer as a "family man," with a number of relatives in the area. "He was there for his family," Asres said. Asres said that he last saw Torbit on New Year's Eve and that the officer had told him he was working that night. "I'm just sad," Asres said. Gamble's relatives, meanwhile, said they believed police acted recklessly in firing on the crowd outside the nightclub. Corey Brown, 31, who said he is Sean Gamble's godbrother, said Sunday night that Gamble had a young child and was engaged to be married. Brown said Gamble worked for a waste management company and had no criminal record, a fact confirmed by a search of court records. "He's not a violent kid; he's not in the streets," said Brown, who was not at the club early Sunday morning. "He's not even cut from that cloth. Apparently he got into a fight, and the cops started shooting. Not in the air, in the crowd, and they shot him." James Gamble said that the shots sent clubgoers running in every direction and that he located his brother underneath a vehicle. Sean Gamble had been shot in the chest, he said. James Gamble and dozens of others were detained for questioning by police. Sean Gamble, who went to Woodlawn High School, was a member of the Baltimore Saints semi-pro football league, playing linebacker and wearing number 56. Brown said Sean Gamble had a "huge heart and was really a person you wanted to be around." "He was loyal, loyal to the death," Brown said. At a news conference outside the Maryland Shock Trauma Center before sunrise Sunday, police said they could not say what prompted the officers to fire or whether anyone other than the officers had fired a gun. "We're a few hours into this whole ordeal, and we have scores of detectives working on the case, processing evidence, and interviewing witnesses," Bealefeld said. "We have a ton of work to do to put together the facts of what happened." The police had a few additional details to offer later Sunday. The detectives were reviewing surveillance camera footage and other physical evidence. Select Lounge opened late in October, a few blocks north of Lexington Market, and has sought to attract an upscale crowd. Its Facebook page describes a strict dress code and boasts of a VIP lounge for the "ultimate in discreet experiences" for "sophisticated club connoisseurs, savvy socialites, A-list celebrities, and Baltimore's [sic] elite." Ravens player Dannell Ellerbe chose the club to celebrate his birthday in December. At the scene Sunday morning, police tape blocked a parking lot adjacent to the Select Lounge that was still full of cars as detectives interviewed clubgoers at police headquarters. A "VIP Parking" sandwich board lay in the street. By afternoon, all that remained in the parking lot were empty liquor bottles and scattered fliers for coming events at nightspots around the city. Calls made to a phone number for the club's owners were not immediately returned. "What we need to figure out is what sparked the shooting," said Guglielmi. "Was there a weapon drawn by a civilian? Was the officer's weapon taken? We've got to put together a timeline and figure out what happened." On Twitter, people lamented Baltimore's continuing nightlife violence. "I can't even go out anymore," one person wrote. Another said, "This has to stop."

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Baltimore Sun reporter Timothy Wheeler contributed to this article.

Credit: The Baltimore Sun

Pair Say Police Officer
41 Shots were fired in Incident outside Nightclub

 Jan 11, 2011

From a Franklin Street apartment, a university employee and her roommate have a broad view of the nightclub parking lot where police say six people were shot Sunday—an incident that left a plainclothes police officer and a 22-year-old man dead. As an unusually large crowd attracted a significant police presence, the two opened a window and watched the events that led up to the shooting outside the Select Lounge in the 400 block of N. Paca St. The women, both 26, saw the plainclothes officer get overwhelmed by an unruly crowd, then watched as two uniformed officers opened fire while he lay on the ground. The women also saw the pained reaction of the slain officer's partners once they realized what had happened. It's a scene they haven't been able to get out of their minds. "I've never seen somebody killed," the university employee said Monday. City police have not given a detailed account of the night's events, saying the investigation will take three weeks to complete. There are dozens of witnesses, and police are seeking to piece together those accounts along with physical evidence and surveillance camera footage. However, the women's account is in line with what police sources think actually happened, and when combined with their information, it provides a vivid account of the chaotic incident. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III confirmed at an afternoon news conference that no civilian weapons were fired and said five officers, including slain officer William H. Torbit Jr., fired a total of 41 rounds during the incident. Bealefeld said the police were "committed to conducting a comprehensive and thorough investigation." "We must understand it, learn from it, and emerge better," he said. "We owe it to all the victims to be thorough and complete and only release confirmed facts." Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the shooting "raises a lot of questions" and that she and Bealefeld are open to an external review of the incident following the Police Department's internal review. The university employee, who did not want her name or school made public, and her roommate, Lakeisha Hutcherson, said in separate interviews with The Baltimore Sun that the incident unfolded about 1:15 a.m. According to the roommates, they first noticed a group of women walking to their cars outside the club when a vehicle began to pull out and almost hit one of them. One of the women became angry and began to hit the car with her shoe, trying to attack the driver, and a man in a pink shirt attempted to calm them down. The driver was able to pull off, but the woman remained agitated. A man—who the roommates would later learn was Torbit, 33—walked over, wearing a brown or black jacket. Neither woman said they saw a badge, though they said he might have been wearing one. Police say Torbit, a narcotics officer, was on-duty and in plainclothes. Normally an officer on such an assignment would not be working crowd control, but he had been called to the scene after dispatchers put out a "Signal"13"—that code, for an officer in distress, typically draws scores of officers looking to help. Officers at the scene were trying to deal with fights inside that spilled out of the recently opened club, and Torbit found himself in the middle of the fracas. "I thought he was just a guy trying to break up the altercation," the university employee said. "He was telling them, 'Stop. Go home.' " Hutcherson added: "He was trying to push people out of the way, trying to stop the fight. He was trying to make peace, and it seemed like some guys took it wrong." In a flash, they said, a large crowd began fighting and "overtook" the plainclothes officer, who disappeared in a sea of people. Sean Gamble, the 22-year-old victim, has been named by family members. His brother told The Baltimore Sun Sunday night that Sean Gamble had witnessed Torbit being aggressive toward a woman and that Gamble started arguing with him. That escalated to an altercation, the brother said. The women say that is not what they saw. "I didn't see [the plainclothes officer] being aggressive with her; she was aggressive," the university employee said. "It looked like he was trying to break it up, to stop it from escalating. I don't even know how the other guys got involved." Then the women saw two uniformed officers approach and heard a shot. They aren't sure who fired the shot—it was not the uniformed officers, the roommates said—and none of those fighting seemed to react. It is believed that the shot came from Torbit's weapon, though police said they are checking ballistics to confirm that. A few seconds later, a second shot went off, the roommates said, and people started running. Hutcherson left the window to check on her young daughter, but her roommate continued watching. The university employee said the man in the dark jacket was lying on his back, his arms splayed out. She could not see a weapon, though police said there's no indication that his gun was taken from him at any point during the fight. "The [plainclothes officer] was... on his back, and two uniformed officers took a couple steps back and just fired at him while he was lying on the ground," the university employee said. Hutcherson, who heard multiple gunshots, recounted how her roommate relayed to her what was happening: "She said, 'Oh my God, they're killing him. He's not even moving; he's laying on the ground with his hands up.' " "Another cop, a heavy-set guy with 'Police' on his back, was screaming [expletives]," she said. "A cop in a brown hoodie fell to his knees, and that's when we knew [the victim] was a cop." A third witness, 39-year-old Jacques Steptoe, said Monday that he had been watching the crowd from his fourth-floor window at a nearby nursing home on North Paca Street. He has been recovering from surgery and couldn't sleep that night, he said. From his vantage point, catty-corner to the roommates' apartment, he said he believed someone sprayed Mace and that Torbit whipped his right arm around, gripping his service weapon, and fired a shot into the crowd. When the uniformed officers saw that, they began opening fire, causing him to fall back. "He fell down with the gun in his hand just like that," Steptoe said, bringing his arms over his head. He said he saw "five or six" officers then approach Torbit, some of them still shooting. At Monday's news conference, police identified the officers who fired their weapons as Harry Dodge, 37, an 11-year veteran; Harry Pawley, 40, a 17-year veteran; Toyia Williams, 36, a 13-year veteran; and Latora Craig, 30, a nine-year veteran. Dodge was shot in the foot, police said. Only Craig has ever discharged her weapon before, said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. Her gun fired into a wall during a struggle for the weapon with a suspect in July 2010. She was cleared and returned to duty. Dodge, Pawley, Williams, and Craig have been placed on routine administrative suspension with pay pending an investigation and have not given statements about the shooting. Michael Davey, an attorney for the Fraternal Order of Police, said the officers do not have to speak with investigators because the case, like all police-involved shootings - is considered a criminal investigation. But he said all of the officers intend to speak with detectives in the coming days. As Torbit lay on the ground, a law enforcement source said, an off-duty medic who was among the clubgoers began tending to him. The roommates said they saw officers pick up Torbit by his arms and legs and carry him to the back seat of a car. The car was surrounded by hordes of people, but the officers eventually were able to drive off, taking him to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead. Meanwhile, a group of people was advancing on the uniformed officers who had fired their weapons, apparently angry at what they had observed, and officers began deploying Tasers and slamming people onto the hoods of cars. "It was out of control," Hutcherson said. A few feet away, they noticed another victim: Sean Gamble. The waste management worker, who has no criminal record, was lying under a car that appeared to be trying to pull away. They said Gamble, whose brother says he was shot in the chest, remained there for what seemed like 30 minutes before an ambulance came. They saw medics pumping his chest. "We're right near Maryland General University Hospital, and no one came for a long time," Hutcherson said. Fire Department officials did not respond to a request for records that would show how long it took for medics to respond. The roommates continued to watch the incident unfold. They said crime scene technicians did not arrive until 4 a.m., with people leaving the club "trampling" on the crime scene. Neither woman has called police to report what they saw; both said they are fearful of officers after observing the incident and the police response. But they said they wanted the public to know what they saw. "I didn't know it was a cop, but no one deserves to be shot at like that," the university employee said. "I felt like it was ridiculously excessive and unnecessary. There was no need for that shooting to happen."
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Baltimore Sun reporters Julie Scharper and Yeganeh June Torbati contributed to this article.