Suspect in killing of Baltimore officer charged

PERRY HALL, Md. — A 16-year-old who was supposed to be on house arrest for auto theft was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder in the death of a Maryland police officer.

After hearing about Dawnta Anthony Harris’ numerous run-ins with the law recently, a judge called him a “oneman crime wave” and ordered the teen held without bail.

More than 20 police Harris officers were in the courtroom when Harris made his first appearance by video. Harris has been charged as an adult in the killing Monday of Baltimore County Police Officer Amy Caprio, 29, who was checking a report of a suspicious vehicle.

Harris was waiting in the vehicle, a Jeep, while three other teens were inside a nearby home committing a burglary, according to authorities and court records.

The slain officer’s body camera footage clearly shows Harris accelerating the Jeep at Caprio after she tried to apprehend him on the cul-de-sac in the Perry Hall suburb northeast of Baltimore, prosecutor William Bickel said during the hearing.

“She fired her weapon. He ran over her,” Bickel said. Harris was apprehended shortly after abandoning the Jeep, which had been stolen Friday in Baltimore, he said.

When asked if he understood the charge he faces, Harris mumbled “yes” as he sat next to his public defender.

Harris has a record of auto-theft arrests and running away from juvenile facilities, according to Caprio prosecutors. The teen had been on house arrest at his mother’s West Baltimore home but ran away May 14, they said.

Judge Sally Chester ordered the ninthgrader to be held at Baltimore County Detention Center, an adult lockup.

“Your client is a one-man crime wave,” Chester told Harris’ public defender, who was pushing for Harris to be sent to a juvenile lockup.

The three teens — ages 15, 16 and 17 — who police say were burglarizing the house were tracked down at their families’ homes in Baltimore, Sheridan said.