ELKTON, Md. (AP) - Officers fatally shot a man and woman on a motel balcony Tuesday when they refused to drop handguns they had raised toward police who were there to serve warrants, Maryland State Police said.
No officers were hurt during the confrontation Tuesday at the New Eastern Inn in Elkton, a city of 15,000 about 45 miles northeast of Baltimore, state police spokesman Greg Shipley said. Investigators were trying to learn if the people killed were those named in the warrants for felony possession of firearms stemming from a shooting earlier this week in Delaware.
"The Delaware State Police had contacted Maryland State Police yesterday, requesting assistance in the location of these two fugitives," Shipley told reporters. "And the state apprehension team took that investigation over and tracked them to this location."
He said uniformed officers from two agencies went to the motel at about 10 a.m., knocked on the door of the second-floor room and announced themselves as police officers.
As they shouted at the room's occupants to surrender, one of the officers saw through a window that a man was approaching the door with a handgun, Shipley said. He said the officers retreated from the door but the man came out and refused to obey their commands. The man raised the gun at officers and they fired, Shipley said.
He said the woman came out a few seconds later with a handgun that she raised. She was also shot after refusing to drop the weapon, Shipley said.
He said investigators don't yet know which officers fired the fatal shots or how many times they fired.