Sprinting across Warren Road after he had been shot multiple times, Baltimore County Police Detective Jonathan Chih collapsed.
“I couldn’t get up, and I couldn’t reach my gun,” Chih testified on Thursday in the Baltimore County Courts Building. “It was a bad nightmare.”
Chih said he sat up and tried to position his body armor to face the gunman. That’s when he said it felt like someone had kicked him — and he fell onto his back.
He said he thought about how he would not survive to make it that weekend to his father’s birthday dinner.
Somehow, Chih said, he withdrew his Glock 17. Everything, he said, was “blurry and slow motion.” He managed to return fire as the shooter stole his 2013 Ram 1500 and then peeled off over a bridge spanning the Loch Raven Reservoir, heading toward Harford County.
For almost three hours, Chih testified during the trial of David Linthicum in Baltimore County Circuit Court about what unfolded that night and watched body camera video of the shooting. At times, Chih choked up.
Linthicum, 26, of Cockeysville, is charged with five counts of attempted first-degree murder and related offenses.
His attorneys, Deborah Katz Levi and James Dills, argue that their client was going through a mental health crisis and contend that the police fumbled their response.
Levi is director of special litigation for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore. Meanwhile, Dills is district public defender for Baltimore County.
Chih testified that he agreed to check out a report about a person who was walking on Warren Road near Bosley Road on Feb. 9, 2023.
Law enforcement was searching for Linthicum, who wounded Officer Barry Jordan on Feb. 8, 2023, after he responded to a call about a man with a gun threatening to kill himself.
In his mind, Chih said, he thought that Linthicum had returned to his house on Powers Avenue above Sherwood Road in Cockeysville. That’s because there had been chatter on the police radio about the lights at the home flickering on and off.
Later, Chih drove past a man who was walking on the side of the road and noticed that he had his thumb out.
At that moment, Chih said, he thought that the man was a hitchhiker.
Next, Chih said, he pulled over, climbed out of his pickup and walked to the bed of his truck to activate the police lights. He said he wanted to stop and identify the man, and take him home.
“I’m out with him,” Chih called out over the police radio. “I think he’s trying to hitchhike.”
He said he could only see a silhouette. Chih wore a body camera on his right shoulder, which captured what happened next:
“What’s up?” Chih said.
“Are you here to kill me?” Linthicum asked.
“No,” Chih replied. “Why?”
That’s when Linthicum opened fire.
Chih screamed, dropped expletives and described where he had been hit. “I’m shot, I’m shot, I’m shot!”
Police, he said, threw him in the bed of a pickup and drove to an ambulance. He was then taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
Several days later, Chih said, he regained consciousness. He estimated that he spent 10 or 11 days in the hospital and then about 2 1/2 weeks in inpatient rehabilitation. He said he’s on modified duty, and his rank is now officer.
At one point, Chih took off his gray suit jacket, climbed down from the witness stand and showed the jury one of his arms. A bullet shattered his ulna, and doctors inserted a metal plate.
On cross-examination, Chih said the Baltimore County Police Department had communicated that Linthicum was armed and dangerous and directed officers to use extreme caution.
He said he knew that schools were on lockdown and there was a shelter-in-place order. Everyone, Chih said, was on the lookout.
Chih acknowledged that he could have turned around in his pickup. But he said he wanted to identify himself as a police officer.
“I could’ve done a lot of things different that night,” Chih testified. “Yes.”
When asked whether he wishes that he would have never got out of his truck, Chih briefly hesitated. The question, he said, was difficult to answer.
