Baltimore County cop injured after traffic stop goes awry near Pikesville; one officer fired his gun, but no one was struck

A Baltimore County Police officer was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries Tuesday night after a traffic stop went awry near Pikesville and an officer fired his gun, police said.

An officer fired his weapon at a suspect who police say was ramming his vehicle into officers’ cars in an attempt to flee the scene. The officer did not strike anyone, and the suspect surrendered and was arrested, said Joy Leppola Stewart, a department spokesperson.

The incident started shortly before 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, when officers tried to pull over a vehicle in the 6900 block of Blanche Road due to a traffic violation, Stewart said. They were trying to pull over the vehicle in a narrow alley area behind homes, Stewart said, when the driver tried to flee.

“It’s a really tight squeeze, so as they were trying to get away, they kept running into — striking — the officers’ vehicles,” Stewart said.

The driver tried to back out of the alley and into a driveway, Stewart said, and became wedged between two cop cars.

“He just kept striking vehicles to see which one would move,” Stewart said.

An officer sitting inside one of those vehicles was injured in the collisions, Stewart said. An officer standing outside their vehicle fired at least once at the suspect, but missed.

Eventually, the force of a collision pushed the driver’s vehicle into a yard, and police made the arrest, Stewart said.

“He really didn’t have anywhere to go,” Stewart said.

The person is in custody but has yet to be charged, Stewart said. County police detectives are investigating the use of force per department policy, Stewart said, in order to determine whether it was excessive. They will make a determination in the case and forward the information to the state’s attorney’s office, Steward said.