Body camera footage shows Baltimore police officer shooting 17-year-old from behind

BALTIMORE — A Baltimore police officer chased a 17-year-old who was running away and shot the teen from behind, body camera footage released Tuesday shows.

The video, captured by the officer who shot the teen, Cedric Elleby, shows a foot pursuit through an alley and onto a nearby street. Elleby can be heard ordering the teen to drop a weapon and to stop. The detective then fires his weapon several times, striking the teen at least once.

After the shooting, police began to render aid. The teen can be seen on the video with at least one gunshot wound, with injuries on his front and back.

The footage appears to confirm witness statements that the teen was shot in the back. However, police at a Tuesday news conference declined to say definitively where he was shot, saying the officer has not yet been interviewed and police don’t yet have a medical report.

“It’s unknown, or undetermined, right now, which one of those injuries is the entry wound and which one is the exit wound,” Commissioner Michael Harrison said.

The shooting is under investigation by Baltimore Police’s Special Investigations Division. The department released video of the shooting on YouTube. (Warning: The video contains profanity.)

Harrison said Tuesday the agency will do a “thorough, transparent and extensive” investigation alongside the State’s Attorney’s Office.

“We understand the high level of scrutiny that results in any use of force by our officers, or by any law enforcement. We do not take that scrutiny lightly,” Harrison said.

Elleby, who joined the department in 2019, has been placed on administrative leave, according to department protocol, said Deputy Commissioner Brian Nadeau, who leads the department’s Public Integrity Bureau. The agency previously identified Elleby as a member of one of the agency’s District Action Teams, specialized police units dedicated to district needs and violent crime arrests.

It’s possible the teen could face criminal charges: Harrison said BPD has taken the case to a court commissioner, who then sent an affidavit to the State’s Attorney’s Office for their review. James Bentley, a spokesman for that office, said it was aware of the charges filed with the commissioner and would be deciding “how to proceed.”

Harrison and Bentley declined to say what criminal charges were proposed or under consideration.

“As with any open and ongoing investigation, we cannot comment at this time,” Bentley said.

The Baltimore Sun is not naming the teen because he is a minor.

Elleby’s body camera footage begins when he is seated on McHenry Street in Southwest Baltimore’s Shipley Hill neighborhood, apparently speaking with a group of people. Audio of that interaction is not captured, and officials said Tuesday there is no body camera footage of that interaction.

Two of the people gathered can be seen walking away from Elleby, who follows.

They pause a short distance away, at which point Elleby appears to speak with them again. The audio begins with someone, likely Elleby, saying: “Come here,” and appearing to reach for one of the people, who is wearing a white shirt and a black backpack.

That teen takes off running, and Elleby chases.

Nadeau, from the Public Integrity Unit, said the audio begins when the officer activated his body camera. The cameras capture a minute of silent footage prior to the point they are activated.

Police on Tuesday showed a slowed-down, edited version of the video; they also released the unedited footage. The edited version highlights moments where police say the teen pulled an object from his waistband, when he is holding it in his hand, and when he turns his head to the right as he is running away.

Around that time, Elleby can be heard saying, “Stop, stop, stop,” and “Put the gun down, put the gun down.” He then fires. Roughly four shots can be heard in the video, and the teen falls onto his left side, with the object on the ground nearby.

A Smith & Wesson 9 mm firearm with an extended magazine, with four rounds in it, was recovered from the scene, Nadeau said. Police said the weapon was stolen from a vehicle in the Western District in 2021.

Officials on Tuesday largely declined to comment on the officer’s actions, noting there is an ongoing investigation and he has not yet been interviewed.

Harrison, for instance, didn’t say what offense the teen was suspected of when the officer decided to pursue him on foot.

The U.S. Department of Justice found in 2016 that Baltimore Police had a pattern of using “unreasonable” force against people who posed little threat, including people fleeing from officers and not suspected of violent crimes.

Officials wrote in a scathing report that foot pursuits increase the chances officers will use force to stop an individual, which wouldn’t otherwise be reasonable based on the threat or crime. Foot pursuits for low-level offenses, the report added, are an “unsafe tactic that unnecessarily endangers officers and community members.”

“Once engaged in a foot pursuit, BPD officers then often used force to end the pursuit regardless of whether they only had reasonable suspicion to conduct a stop or probable cause to make an arrest,” the report said.

At the time, DOJ investigators said the department had no policy on foot pursuits and “deficient” training on the topic.

Policy now says an officer may use deadly force against a fleeing person only if it is necessary and there is probable cause to believe the person has committed or is committing a serious felony offense and that their escape would pose an imminent danger.

Harrison said Tuesday that the decision to use deadly force, according to policy, is a determination of whether it is “reasonable, proportional and necessary.”

“The officer has to determine that in a second, in a nanosecond. But it is based on the threat and the potential of threat that the officer has to assess, to be able to make that decision,” Harrison said.

Residents and others in the Shipley Hill neighborhood last week objected to the shooting. One man, who rents homes nearby, said a 17-year-old is “still a child, no ifs ands or buts about it.”

Another man, Christopher Smith, said “these police are not for the people.”

Some also questioned the police’s justification for the initial interaction, after a deputy commissioner, Rich Worley, said last week the officer had approached because he believed the teen was “displaying characteristics of an armed person.”

Daquan Young, a friend of the teen’s, said nonuniformed officers frequently pass through the neighborhood. “They come and bother us every day,” he said.

Defense attorney Natalie Finegar called the police terminology “characteristics of an armed person” a “nebulous area,” created to justify a stop based on a “hunch.” Finegar said it’s an area “fraught for abuse” similar to the so-called war on drugs in the early ‘90s.

“In other words, yes, guns are an epidemic, and it’s a huge problem. But do we solve that by loosening everybody’s Fourth Amendment rights?” she asked.

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