All four incidents where people were killed by Baltimore County police this year involved subjects with mental health issues, according to family members.
That includes last week’s shooting in Essex where police responded to a sibling dispute and stabbing.
Essex December shooting
The brother of 31-year-old Howard Sye, who died in the encounter with police in Essex on Wednesday, raised questions about the response given his brother’s mental health.
“You let out seven shots and somebody that had a knife—that had mental issues going on with him—and you don’t sit and ask any questions — you just shoot? Is that OK to you or to the people who are supposed to protect us? I guarantee you my sister called because she didn’t know what transpired or what he was capable of,” Sye’s brother Tabias told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren.
Baltimore County police said Sye was armed with a knife, and officers opened fire in response to his actions. They said officers were told, while en route to the shooting, that it also involved a stabbing. A woman was later found stabbed inside the apartment at the Kings Mill complex, believed to be Sye’s sister.
Investigators have named four responding officers. All of them have two years or less of service.
Dundalk May shooting
In May, police shot and killed Glenn Pettie Jr. in Dundalk.
The Independent Investigations Division of the Maryland Office of the Attorney General revealed that the man and an officer exchanged gunfire, and the man was shot. Pettie was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The Attorney General’s Office said that the response started as a 911 call reporting a mental health crisis.
“Our officers respond to these types of incidents every day,” Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said. “They do a great job in handling these things. The thing that I want to point out is the danger from the number of handguns on the street — the number of handguns that our officers are encountering more and more in these incidents — people, whether armed with a handgun or armed with a knife.”.
Arbutus April shooting
In April, county police shot and killed Arvel Jones Sr. in Arbutus.
Investigators said he had a bow and arrow. Jones was captured on Ring video before he was killed.
No body camera footage exists.
“[He] did his best to raise me, knowing he had a mental illness, but he still did his best that he could do as a father. Never been a violent guy,” his son Arvel Jones Jr. said at the time. “Truthfully, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Mobile crisis team
Baltimore County has a Mobile Crisis Team that pairs a specially trained officer with a mental health clinician to respond to mental health crises.
Police would not say if the Mobile Crisis Team responded to the latest deadly shooting in Essex.
They referred WJZ Investigates’ questions about past calls to the apartment and prior knowledge of Sye’s mental health issues to investigators with the Attorney General’s Office. They had not responded as of Monday evening.
“If the protocol was followed, he would be living right now,” Sye’s brother said.
All four of the deadly shootings remain under active investigation by their independent investigations division.
You can access the attorney general’s full list of shootings, including news releases and body camera video, here.