SUITLAND, Md. – An armed man kidnapped a woman, shot a Census Bureau guard and led police on a car chase through Maryland and Washington, D.C., on Thursday before authorities cornered him in an exchange of gunfire that left the suspect and a police officer wounded, authorities said.
The guard, identified as Lawrence Buckner, died at a hospital in Cheverly, Maryland, at 7:19 p.m. Thursday, said Prince George’s Hospital Center spokeswoman Erika Murray. She did not give Buckner’s age.
The officer and suspect were both conscious when they were taken for medical care, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier told a news conference.
Lanier said a guard at a gate of the U.S. Census Bureau in Suitland, Maryland, saw two people fighting in a car that matched the description of a vehicle described in a report of an armed kidnapping.
When the guard approached the car, the man shot him and took off, crossing the border into the nation’s capital and firing at D.C. police who had begun to chase him, Lanier said.
He fired again at them during the chase before police blocked him and collided with his car, Lanier said. Cornered, the suspect opened fire again and police shot back. During the exchange of gunfire, both the suspect and an officer were wounded, she said.
“We have every reason to believe that the car we have … is the same car involved” in the kidnapping, the shooting at the Census Bureau, and the shooting at police, Lanier said.
Police said in a news release that the woman who was allegedly kidnapped was found safe.
The shooting was not terrorism-related, FBI Baltimore spokeswoman Amy J. Thoreson told The Associated Press in an email. The police chief confirmed that.
“We believe this was domestic related,” she said.
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