Maryland trooper fatally shoots driver after man allegedly dragged him with car

BALTIMORE — A Maryland State Police trooper fatally shot a man who police said dragged the trooper more than a third of a mile after being pulled over on Interstate 95 in Elkridge early Friday morning, officials said.

The man, identified by Maryland State Police as 36-year-old Julio Cesar Moran-Ruiz of Baltimore, was weaving in and out of lanes on the highway when the state trooper initiated a traffic stop shortly after 2 a.m. near Route 100 in Elkridge, police said. Moran-Ruiz pulled his vehicle over onto the right shoulder and the trooper called for backup to conduct a routine sobriety test, police said.

The troopers asked Moran-Ruiz, whom state police identified as a Hispanic male with no identification on him at the time, to step out of the car. He was showing “obvious signs of impairment,” the state police wrote in a news release, and refused to step out of the vehicle.

The trooper on the driver’s side attempted to reach through the car window and take the keys from the ignition but was not successful, state police said. The driver restarted the car and put it in drive with the trooper’s upper body still inside.