“Shots fired! Shots fired!” Montgomery County Police Officer Justin Lee yelled in seeming panic after shooting a man suspected of stabbing four people. Crumpled motionless on the sidewalk was Franklin Castro Ordonez, 19, of Gaithersburg.
The moment is part of a seven-minute video, which includes footage from a dashboard and body-worn camera, that was released Thursday by the Maryland Office of the Attorney General. It is the first public look at the fatal shooting that occurred the morning of July 22 in the suburban Aspen Hill neighborhood.
Ordonez was suspected of stabbing four people in the areas of Colie Road and the Unique Thrift Store on Veirs Mill Road in an attack Montgomery County Police Assistant Chief Darren Francke called “unprovoked” and “random” at a press conference on July 22.
All four stabbing victims survived the incident, police said.
The video opens with dashboard footage of an officer driving through a neighborhood of single-family homes after the suspect. The officer, who has not been named, spots Ordonez, who then appears to charge the car, knife in hand.
“He just tried to stab my car,” the officer says on the radio as he maneuvers the car to get a better visual of Ordonez. Soon after, Lee’s car can be seen coming onto the scene.
The witnessing officer yells “Lee, get back in your car!” as he exits his own vehicle and races toward Ordonez, who is sprinting on the sidewalk toward Lee.
Then the footage shifts to Lee’s perspective as he exits his car and moves toward Ordonez, demanding Ordonez “drop the knife.” Instead, Ordonez starts running toward Lee, knife in hand, as Lee yells “He’s charging at me!” and “drop the knife!”
Lee fires multiple shots, and Ordonez collapses to the ground.
Other officers soon appear around Ordonez and begin providing medical assistance as the video cuts out.
The Attorney General’s Office policy requires that body- and dash-cam video from fatal police interactions be released to the public within two weeks of an incident, meaning this video was to have been released Aug. 5.
The video was released almost two weeks after that date.
“The release of the body-worn camera footage in this incident was delayed to allow investigators time to conduct witness interviews,” the Attorney General’s Office said in a press release.
In the press conference, Francke provided a recounting of events. He said that after the report of stabbings, officers set up a perimeter and were searching for Ordonez.
A citizen told them that he was going into the woods. As officers surrounded the woods, Ordonez emerged onto the sidewalk and confronted a police cruiser. He then lunged at Lee, and Lee shot him to prevent him from harming anyone else, according to Francke.
At the July 22 press conference, Francke said that Lee and the officer who witnessed the shooting were placed on administrative leave by the police department, which is standard practice after an incident like this.
The Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office will determine if the officers will face any charges because the Montgomery County and Howard County state’s attorneys have an agreement to review officer-involved civilian fatalities in each other’s jurisdictions. Starting Oct. 1 of this year, the state Attorney General’s Office will have charging authority.
