(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to unveil proposals Wednesday afternoon to strengthen the state’s gun laws and close “loopholes” in the wake of the deadly Buffalo shooting over the weekend.
The announcement was planned before the weekend shooting, and was delayed by President Joe Biden’s Tuesday visit to Buffalo, Hochul’s hometown.
However, the issue takes on increased urgency as her administration reviews how the 18-year-old suspect, Payton Gendron, legally purchased his weapons and then made modifications that are illegal in New York, already home to some of the nation’s strictest gun laws.
Even before the mass shooting in Buffalo, there was a focus on guns in the state. Illegal gun possession statistics were up last month in the state and country’s largest city, New York City. New York police made 146 more arrests for illegal guns in April 2022 versus April 2021, a 65% increase, according to the NYPD. Shooting incidents, however, did drop 29% in April 2022 versus April 2021.
Proposals already under discussion in the state Capitol include requiring local law enforcement to report recovered weapons to a federal database in a timely manner, and allowing the state to conduct its own background checks.
New requirements could also be put in place for gun dealers, beefing up training for staff and record keeping.
The administration is also looking into the use, or lack thereof, of the state’s red flag laws, which could have identified the Buffalo suspect and kept him from purchasing the gun used to shoot 13 people, killing 10. The prohibition can remove guns from the home of a person identified to be at high risk and keep the person from buying guns for a year.
The suspect was not red-flagged following threats to carry out a shooting at his graduation last June, and he later admitted in a cache of documents that he intentionally avoided the prohibition by downplaying last year’s incident. Following a police investigation, no charges were filed against Gendron, who received a mental health evaluation and counseling after the incident.
Gendron is expected to make his next court appearance on Thursday.
(NEW YORK) — The mother of a teen who went missing in 2009 while on spring break is speaking out after authorities announced an arrest in the case.
“I never thought we would get to this place and we’re finally here,” Dawn Pleckan, Drexel’s mother, told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “And now I can get Brittanee back and lay to rest.”
In 2009, Drexel vanished while on a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. On Monday, authorities announced at a news conference that Raymond Moody, 62, was arrested and charged with her murder after her remains were found in a wooded area in Georgetown County, South Carolina, last week.
“In the last week, we’ve confirmed that Brittanee lost her life in a tragic way, at the hands of a horrible criminal who was walking our streets,” said FBI special agent in charge Susan Ferensic.
For 13 years, Brittanee’s parents, Pleckan and Chad Drexel, have searched for her.
Pleckan said her daughter wanted to go on the trip but she remembered telling her no because of a lack of parental supervision. Pleckan said she also had a bad hunch.
“She asked me if she could go and I told her no,” Pleckan recalled. “And she asked me why. I said, because I don’t know the kids you’re going with. I don’t — there’s no parental supervision and something’s going to happen.”
Brittanee ended up leaving for the spring break trip to Myrtle Beach on April 22, 2009, despite her mother’s wishes. Three days later, the teen was seen for the last time on a hotel surveillance camera. She was leaving a friend’s room at the Blue Water Resort to walk back to the hotel where she was staying, about a mile-and-a-half walk down the busy Myrtle Beach strip, ABC Rochester station WHAM-TV reported.
She was about halfway to her destination when she disappeared, investigators said, based on surveillance footage from cameras on 11th Avenue and Ocean Boulevard.
Her remains were found less than 3 miles from a motel where Moody had been living at the time of Drexel’s disappearance, Georgetown County Sheriff Carter Weaver said. Authorities allege that Moody buried her body. Authorities did not answer reporters’ questions on how Drexel’s remains were found.
Moody is being held without bond at the Georgetown County jail and is expected to be charged with rape, murder and kidnapping — in addition to a charge of obstruction of justice that he was initially brought in for, said Jimmy Richardson, solicitor for Horry and Georgetown Counties.
In 2012, he had been identified as a person of interest in the disappearance but there was not enough evidence to name him as a suspect, officials said.
Investigators believe Drexel was held against her will and killed.
Pleckan and Chad Drexel have asked for privacy and thanked investigators and volunteers for their work over the past decade.
“This is truly a mother’s worst nightmare,” Pleckan said. “I am mourning my beautiful daughter Brittanee as I have been for 13 years. But today, it’s bittersweet. We are much closer to the closure in the piece that we have been desperately hoping for.”
On Monday, which would have been Brittanee’s 30th birthday according to WHAM, Pleckan said she hopes justice will be served.
“One thing … we’re going to look forward to is to get justice for Brittanee,” she said. “I want people to know out there that Brittanee’s legacy is going to live on.”
Pleckan added, “She had her whole life ahead of her. And this monster took it away from her. I’m glad [Moody] is behind bars so that he can’t hurt anyone else’s child.”
(JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla.) — It’s been three months since her husband was murdered, but Kirsten Bridegan has very few answers as to what happened that night.
Jared Bridegan, 33, was shot and killed on Feb. 16 in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, when he stopped his car while driving home after dropping off his 9-year-old twins with his ex-wife.
Kirsten Bridegan believes he stopped the car when he saw a tire in the middle of the road and, rather than drive around, he got out to investigate. Their 2-year-old daughter, Bexley, was in the back seat.
“Jared’s the kind of guy who would stop and move it so others wouldn’t worry about it,” she told ABC News.
The former Microsoft senior manager and father of four was shot, possibly three or four times, Kirsten Bridegan said, in what she described as a targeted attack on Sanctuary Boulevard.
“I don’t buy into the theory that it was random,” she said. “Somebody knew his route. They thought maybe he would be alone … They didn’t fully realize there might be a child.”
“I believe he was the target. Some coward trapped him and took him out and that’s not OK,” she said.
Since Jared Bridegan’s murder in February, First Coast Crime Stoppers has doubled its initial reward to $50,000 for any tips that lead to an arrest, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has offered $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.
Police are investigating a vehicle of interest believed to be a dark-colored, likely blue, Ford F-150 truck dated between 2004 and 2008 in connection to Jared Bridegan’s murder. They are also asking if residents know anything about a damaged tire, which they say might be related to the case.
Sgt. Tonya Tator of the Jacksonville Beach Police Department told ABC News the attack “appears to be targeted.”
The department is working on the case and pursuing leads, as well as waiting for results from forensic testing, Tator said.
In the wake of her best friend’s murder, Kirsten Bridegan said, some days are better than others.
She described her husband as a creative, fun and loving father who would do anything for his four kids — his twins, Abby and Liam, Bexley and the couple’s eight-month-old daughter, London, who was home with Kirsten at the time of the murder.
“He loved being a dad. He genuinely did,” she told ABC News. “He would spend hours setting up some activity that he thought would be awesome.”
From baking competitions and obstacle courses, to laser tag and their tradition of making toothpick boats to float outside in the rain, “he really went above and beyond to make memories and bond with his kids,” she said.
Now, he won’t get to see his four children grow up; he won’t see London crawl and eventually walk, and he won’t see any of his kids get married, Kirsten Bridegan said.
While nothing will make up for what someone did to her husband, she hopes “they will be remorseful and apologize, and that might mean something to his kids as they grow up,” Kirsten Bridegan said. “I’m fighting hard for Jared and all four of his children so they will have answers and justice, and know why someone took their father away so young.”
“I think it’s a start to find the person or persons behind this and have them pay some earthly justice for what they did,” she added.
Now, she is asking the public for help by asking for people to keep an eye our for the truck and to share her husband’s story.
“The more we know, the more eyes we have, that’s what we need help with. It’s been three months, they could have disappeared,” she said. “The further we get this spread, the better.”
Kirsten Bridegan has created Instagram and TikTok accounts to spread the word about her husband’s murder and to help collect tips.
Anyone with information can contact First Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS (8477) or visit the FCCS website, and they can also call the Jacksonville Beach Police Department at 904-270-1667.
(NEW YORK) — Wildlife officers are investigating a reported mountain lion attack in northern California that left a woman’s dog fighting for its life after it attempted to defend its owner.
The incident took place Monday afternoon near Big Bar, where the woman took her Belgian malinois for a walk on a trail near a picnic area, according to wildlife officers.
The reported attack unfolded when the mountain lion swiped at the woman’s left shoulder, wounding her and causing her to scream. The dog then returned and came to her defense against the animal, wildlife officers said.
“The mountain lion bit the dog’s head and would not let go,” California Department of Fish and Wildlife law enforcement division Capt. Patrick Foy said in a statement. “The woman attempted to throw rocks, tug and pull them apart. [She] even attempted to gouge the eyes out of the lion, to no avail.”
Seeking help, the woman ran back to the road where she left her vehicle and flagged down a passerby for assistance, wildlife officers said. Spraying the mountain lion in the face with pepper spray did not stop the attack, they added.
The animal then proceeded to drag the woman’s dog off to a different location, wildlife officers said. The woman and passerby were finally able to release the dog from the mountain lion’s grip by repeatedly hitting it with a PVC pipe they found in the area.
Wildlife officials collected samples at the scene for analysis, which are being processed at a lab.
“Initial evidence from the investigation is strong enough to allow wildlife officers to treat the investigation as a legitimate attack,” Foy said.
The woman drove herself to receive medical treatment for non-life threatening injuries, including bite wounds, scratches and abrasions. The dog’s condition has been described as “guarded” and it remains unknown if she will survive, wildlife officials said.
(CONCORD, N.H.) — A person of interest is being sought in the slayings of a retired New Hampshire couple found shot to death last month on a hiking trail near their Concord home, authorities announced on Tuesday.
The New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella and Concord Chief of Police Bradley Osgood said in a joint statement that the man investigators want to speak with was seen in Concord on April 18 in the vicinity of where the bodies of Stephen Reid, 67, and his wife, Djeswende “Wendy” Reid, 66, were found three days later.
The person of interest is described as a white male in his late 20s or early 30s, authorities said. He’s about 5-foot-10, has a medium build, has short brown hair and is clean-shaven. He was seen wearing a dark blue jacket, possibly with a hood; khaki-colored pants and was carrying a black backpack.
Formella and Osgood released a sketch of the man.
They also announced that a reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the killer has grown to $33,500.
The FBI is assisting in the investigation.
The Reids were last seen alive on April 18 when they left their home in the Alton Woods apartment complex in Concord around 2:30 p.m. and went for a walk in the Broken Ground Trails area, authorities said.
The couple was reported missing on April 20 when Stephen Reid failed to show up at a planned event, according to the state attorney general’s office. Their bodies were discovered a day later off a hiking trail in the Broken Ground Trails system, officials said.
Autopsies determined they both died from multiple gunshot wounds.
Homicide investigators and the couple’s children have asked the public to report any information that could possibly help crack the case.
The couple’s family, including their children, Lindsay and Brian Reid, released a statement, describing Stephen and Wendy Reid as soulmates who traveled the world and shared a “mutual love of adventure and fitness.”
The Reids moved to Concord about three years ago when Stephen Reid, who grew up in Concord, retired from a more than 30-year career as an international development specialist working on humanitarian projects around the world through USAID, their family said.
The couple met while Wendy Reid, who was from West Africa, was studying in Washington, D.C., on an athletic scholarship, the family said.
After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, Stephen Reid served in the Peace Corps in West Africa for four years, according to relatives.
(TOMS RIVER, N.J.) — One person is dead and another has been rescued after the siblings became trapped under sand while digging at a Jersey Shore beach Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
Police and emergency medical services responded to a barrier island beach in Toms River, New Jersey, shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday “for reports of juveniles trapped in the sand as it collapsed around them while digging,” the Toms River Police Department said on Facebook.
First responders were able to rescue a 17-year-old girl, who was treated at the scene, though her brother, 18, died at the scene, police said.
The victim was identified by police as Levy Caverley of Maine.
The teen was visiting the region from out of town with his family, police said.
Police urged people not to respond to the area while the rescue was in progress.
Live footage from the scene Tuesday evening showed more than a dozen first responders near the shoreline. Emergency crews from several neighboring towns aided in the rescue effort.
Rescue workers are currently working to recover the body from the collapse, police said.
(LAGUNA WOODS, Calif.) — The pastor being hailed a hero for helping to thwart a gunman from taking additional lives at a California church described how the congregation, consisting mostly of elderly attendees, overtook the shooter.
About 50 people had gathered at the Geneva Presbyterian Church, a Taiwanese congregation in Laguna Woods, California, about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles, on Sunday afternoon for a lunch banquet to welcome back Rev. Billy Chang from a trip to Taiwan, Chang told ABC News.
But a gunman angry over tensions between China and Taiwan, 68-year-old Las Vegas resident David Chou, was also in attendance and attempted to secure the doors inside with chains, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said Monday. Chou also attempted to disable the locks within the church with superglue, Barnes said.
Chang was on the podium taking photos when he witnessed the gunman randomly firing at congregants, he described in a statement on Monday.
Parishioners were able to escape through the one door Chou allegedly did not lock, and when he stopped to reload, Chang and Dr. John Cheng, a prominent sports physician, sprang into action.
Cheng, 52, charged the suspect and tried to disarm him allowing others to jump in, Barnes said. Chang grabbed a chair and slammed it into the shooter, pushing him to the floor, he said.
“I was in shock during these events,” Chang said in the statement.
Several of the surrounding congregants then swarmed the shooter, Chang said.
The group of churchgoers detained Chou, hogtying his legs with an extension cord and confiscating two handguns from him before more people could be shot, said Orange County Sheriff’s Office Undersheriff Jeff Hallock. Others called 911 while the restraint took place, Chang said.
“That group of churchgoers displayed…exceptional heroism, heroism and bravery in interfering or intervening to stop the suspect,” Hallock said.
Most of the congregants were elderly, officials said, and the injured victims ranged in age from 66 to 92 years old.
Cheng was shot and killed during the chaos, and five others were wounded by gunfire, Barnes said. Investigators believe more people would have been shot had it not been for Cheng’s actions, Barnes said.
“The majority of the people in attendance were elderly, and they acted spontaneously, heroically,” Barnes said. “There would have been many, many more lives lost if not for the concerted effort of the members of that church.”
Chang, through tears, asked for prayers for Cheng’s family and for the congregation.
“Thank you for your concern and continued prayers,” Chang told ABC News. “While my return to the United States, worship at the church and luncheon was [a] joyous occasion, the events that followed have deeply impacted the community and me.”
Chou, who is Chinese but an American citizen, is being held on $1 million bail, jail records show. He is expected to be charged with one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder, authorities said.
Authorities believe Chou’s anger began when he lived in Taiwan, where he felt he was an outsider, and his anti-Taiwan views were not accepted, Barnes said.
Chou’s wife and son still live in Taiwan, but Chou has lived alone in the U.S. for many years, Barnes said, adding that Chou’s views have become more radical as tensions between China and Taiwan have escalated.
China has long held that Taiwan is part of its country, while Taiwan governs itself as an independent nation dating back to when Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek fled the mainland as the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949.
The FBI has opened a federal hate crimes investigation into the shooting.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Ten people, all of whom were Black, were killed in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday, in an attack authorities are calling a “racially motivated hate crime.”
The victims included four grocery store employees as well as six customers, several of them regulars at the store, according to the Buffalo Police Department and those who knew them.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden mourned those who were lost in the attack with the Buffalo community on Tuesday, describing them as “the best of our community.”
“The people who were slaughtered by this evil were very good people,” Biden said, vowing to make the community safer by advocating for stricter gun laws and criminal justice reform.
Here is what’s known about the victims so far:
Ruth Whitfield, 86
Ruth Whitfield was returning home from visiting her husband in a nursing home when she stopped by Tops to pick up groceries — “a daily ritual,” her son, Garnell Whitfield, told ABC News Sunday morning.
Ruth Whitfield was in the store when the gunman opened fire and was among the 10 who died in the shooting, Garnell Whitfield, a former Buffalo fire chief, said.
Garnell Whitfield described his mother’s devotion to her family, especially her husband, whose health has been declining over the past eight years.
“She was there just about every day, taking care of him, making sure he was well cared for by the staff, washing, ironing his clothes, making sure he was dressed appropriately, making sure his nails were cut and clean and shaved,” he said. “All of that. Every day.”
Even as her own health began to weaken, Ruth Whitfield still tried to visit her husband each day, taking days off only when she felt too debilitated to make the trip, her son said.
After suffering “a very difficult childhood,” when she became a mother, Ruth Whitfield “was all about family,” Garnell Whitfield said.
“And she rose above it, and she raised us in spite of all of that, being very poor,” he said. “She raised us to be productive men and women.”
Whitfield also sang in a choir, Biden said in his address Tuesday.
Roberta Drury, 32
Roberta Drury, a regular at Tops, was a “vibrant and outgoing” woman who could “talk to anyone,” her sister, Amanda Drury, told ABC News on Sunday.
Roberta Drury was born in Cicero, New York, about 150 miles east of Buffalo, and moved to the city in 2010 after her oldest brother, Christopher Drury, received a bone marrow transplant there to treat his leukemia.
She helped him run his restaurant, The Dalmatia, and care for his family, Amanda Drury said.
“She was always willing to help and laugh,” Amanda said over text.
Aaron Salter, 55
Aaron Salter, a retired Buffalo Police officer, was killed after he confronted the gunman, who entered the store wearing military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet.
Salter was working as a security guard and shot the assailant, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told ABC News on Sunday. But the bullets had no effect due to the bulletproof vest the suspect wore, and the gunman returned fire, striking Salter.
Gramaglia described Salter as a “true hero” who undoubtedly saved more lives during the encounter.
“He went down fighting,” Gramaglia said. “He came in, he went towards the gunfire. He went towards the fight.”
One Tops employee, a mother of seven, told ABC News that if it hadn’t been for Salter, she and her 20-year-old daughter, who was working at the register, would not have known the gunman was headed in their direction.
When she saw Salter pull out his weapon, they knew they had to run, and they both made it out alive, she said.
Salter was a “beloved” employee of Tops, several years after he retired from the police department.
“He took on a responsibility to protect the customers and the employees in the store,” Gramaglia said. “And he did exactly what he signed up for.”
During a Medal of Valor ceremony on Monday, Biden commended Salter, saying the retired police officer and father “gave his life trying to save others.”
Heyward Patterson, 67
Deacon Heyward Patterson was shot while inside his truck in the parking lot of the supermarket, Pastor James Giles told ABC Buffalo affiliate WKBW.
Patterson’s family described him to the station as a loving person. He leaves behind a wife and daughter.
Pearl Young, 77
Pearl Young, an Alabama native, spent the final years of her life teaching children as a substitute teacher in the Buffalo School District and was heavily involved in her church community, her sister, Mary Craig, told ABC News.
“She loved her students, and they loved her back,” a statement from her family read.
Craig described Young as “such a beautiful, sweet woman.”
“We’re all in shock and disbelief,” she said of the family.
Young leaves behind two sons and a daughter, Craig said.
Young was described in the statement as a missionary who would be “truly missed.”
“Missionary Pearl Young was a worshipper and loved God. She loved her children, her family, and her Good-Samaritan COGIC church family,” the statement read. “She was a true pillar in the community.”
On Tuesday, Biden said, “She touched the apple of God’s eye.”
Geraldine Talley, 62
In her final moments, Geraldine Talley, who’d come to Tops Family Market Saturday afternoon for a few items, sent her fiancée down an aisle to retrieve something off a shelf.
Before they could reunite, an armed suspect entered the supermarket and opened fire. Her fiancée survived the massacre.
Talley’s last moments were described to ABC News by Kaye Chapman-Johnson, her younger sister, who was not at the store with the couple.
“I am so angry, just devastated. This is so hard for our family right now,” she said in an off-camera interview. “Our sister, we had so many plans together, so many plans, and everything has just been stripped away from us.
“Our lives will definitely never be the same again.”
Two years older, Talley, 62, was Chapman-Johnson’s “best friend,” her sister said. “We talked every day.”
Talley was one of nine siblings and was “an amazing sister, mother, aunt,” said Chapman-Johnson. “She just was truly an amazing woman. And I’m going to miss her dearly.”
Talley’s death has left her family “destroyed,” added her sister. “I’m hoping that we can all move on.”
Celestine Chaney, 65
Celestine Chaney, 65, of Buffalo, was a mother and grandmother of six, The Buffalo News reported.
She was shopping with her older sister, JoAnn Daniels, when she was shot, according to the newspaper.
“She was a breast cancer survivor and she survived aneurysms in her brain, and then she goes to Tops and gets shot,” her sister told The Buffalo News.
Chaney’s son, Wayne Jones, told the newspaper, “If people’s moms are still around, just don’t be too caught up in social media and the world to pick up the phone and talk to your mom or your dad.”
Katherine Massey, 72, of Buffalo
Katherine “Kat” Massey was a civil rights activist who worked tirelessly to improve Buffalo’s Black community, The Buffalo News reported.
The Buffalo News said Massey wrote for local publications the Buffalo Challenger and Buffalo Criterion, and that she often wrote letters to The Buffalo News.
“She was unapologetic about making sure our community was not ignored,” Massey’s friend, former Erie County Legislator Betty Jean Grant, told the The Buffalo News. “We lost a powerful, powerful voice.”
Margus Morrison, 52, of Buffalo
Margus Morrison was a “great father” and “wonderful person” who was always willing to help his family, his stepdaughter, Cassandra Demps, said in a text message to ABC News.
Morrison is “a soul that will always be missed,” Demps wrote.
Andre Mackneil, 53, of Auburn, New York
ABC News’ Matt Foster and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(SANTA FE, N.M.) — A massive wildfire currently burning east of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is now the largest in the state’s history as thousands of firefighters continue to battle the blaze.
The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire — made up of two fires that merged into one giant blaze last month — has burned 299,565 acres, state fire officials said Tuesday.
It officially surpassed the Whitewater-Baldy Fire as the largest fire in New Mexico’s history on Monday. That fire, which was caused by lightning and also consisted of two separate fires that merged, had burned 297,845 acres primarily in the Gila National Forest before being contained in late July 2012.
The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire, the largest active fire in the U.S., was only 26% contained as of Tuesday morning, with more than 2,090 fire personnel responding. The Hermits Peak fire was caused by spot fires from a prescribed burn, while the cause of the Calf Canyon fire is under investigation, according to state fire officials.
Residents of San Miguel, Mora, Taos and Colfax counties are advised to remain on “high alert” Tuesday for evacuation updates and road closures, officials said.
Firefighters faced unfavorable wind conditions, warming temperatures and severe dry conditions since the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires ignited in early April.
“The challenge of predicting how wildfires move, the best experts in the world on this topic still are not going to get it right,” Dr. Jason Knievel, deputy director for the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Albuquerque ABC affiliate KOAT this week.
There is a mix of conifer trees, ponderosa pine, brush and grass where the fire is now — and “critically dry fuels” may increase fire activity, fire officials warned Tuesday. The fire is burning near an area with steep terrain, which can also help spread the fire, according to Knievel.
“Fire tends to move uphill,” he said.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency in several counties last month as multiple wildfires burned, including the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire.
President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration earlier this month for New Mexico that brings financial resources to the areas battling the fires.
Thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate and hundreds of structures have been destroyed due to the recent wildfire activity, the governor noted in a letter to Biden last week requesting additional aid.
(BALTIMORE) — A fire and explosion at a suburban Baltimore nail salon that injured seven people was deliberately set by an “emotionally distressed” man, authorities said Tuesday. Four police officers and two emergency medical workers were wounded in the incident.
The suspect, whose name was not immediately released, was critically injured in the blast at the Libra Nails & Spa salon in Windsor Mill about 23 miles northwest of Baltimore, according to the Baltimore County Police Department.
Baltimore County Fire Department officials said the suspect is a former employee of the nail salon, the Baltimore Sun reported.
Police officers responded to a workplace disturbance call at the nail salon, in the Security Station Shopping Center, just after 9 p.m. and encountered the suspect who was refusing to leave business, police said in a statement released to ABC News Tuesday morning.
A police spokesperson told reporters Monday night that officers called EMTs to the scene to examine the “emotionally distressed” man. While the officers and EMTs were inside the salon, the suspect suddenly ran to the back of the business, police said.
“The individual refused commands by officers and proceeded to run into the back of the store where he started a fire that produced an explosion,” according to the police statement.
The four police officers and two EMTs were taken to hospitals with minor to non-life-threatening injuries, according to the statement. One officer remained in the hospital Tuesday for further observation, while the other officers and emergency medical workers were treated and released.
The suspect was placed into custody and taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to the statement.
Charges against the suspect are pending further investigation, police said.
A motive also remains under investigation.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Baltimore County Fire Department are assisting the probe.
Fire officials said the blaze and explosion were fueled by flammable chemicals, including acetone and nail polish remover, stored inside the business. The fire quickly engulfed the business and prompted fire officials to declare a hazmat situation.
The fire was brought under control at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.
