Trooper Shot This Morning (Maryland)
Associated Press
Posted Tuesday, December 12, 2006 at 6:59 am
WOODLAWN, Md. -- State police say a trooper was shot and wounded this morning in Baltimore County.
It happened about 5 a.m. on Forest Park Avenue in Woodlawn.
Troopers at the Golden Ring barracks say the trooper was flown to Shock Trauma in Baltimore. His condition isn't known.
I hope he or she is okay...
Update! Trooper Steadily Recovering
Critically Wounded Md. Trooper Steadily Recovering
(WJZ/AP) Baltimore, MD Wounded state trooper Eric Workman was sitting up and answering questions from family members on Thursday.
Eyewitness News was there as family members fielded questions about Workman's recovery process. "He looks good, his color is good. They say he's well ahead of what they expected," said the trooper's father, Gary D. Workman, a former Secret Service agent.
The elder Workman spoke to the media at a news conference attended by eight family members outside the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center, where his son is recuperating.
The trooper's father said his son can answer "yes and no, but it's difficult for him to talk because there are a lot of tubes."
The shooting is the second major hospitalization for the state trooper in the past eight years, following an accident in which he was hit by a vehicle during a traffic detail and severely injured.
Despite the two incidents, the trooper's father said his son always wanted to be a police officer and he would support his son if he wanted to return to duty. "It's just something he always wanted to do and I support him, if he's physically able after this, he should go back," said the Mount Lookout, W.Va., resident.
Eric Workman, who lives in Catonsville, spent time at his father's place in West Virginia during his last recuperation, fishing at times at a lake on the property, and his father said he expected to see him there again.
Asked whether family members had talked about the two accidents and his ability to recover, the father said his son is tough, but "we don't want to test those nine lives, we definitely don't. This is enough, but I'll support him if he goes back."
The wounded trooper, who was wearing a ballistic vest, was shot after he and other officers entered a home seeking a suspect in a home invasion. State police said Steven T. Jones, 38, appeared at the top of a stairway and opened fire before he was killed by return fire.
Workman was hit in the left armpit and the bullet traveled through his left chest and into his abdomen, damaging his left kidney, left lung and the left side of his spleen, hospital officials said.
Jones' father said his son had been living at his Woodlawn home since his release from prison in August.
Michael Rock told Eyewitness News he answered his door early Tuesday and let in about six police officers, who walked upstairs toward his son's room. Gunfire quickly erupted, leaving his son dead. "Upstairs sounded like a war in Vietnam," Rock said.
The gun battle left six bullet holes at the top of a staircase, two more nearby and a blood-soaked carpet, Rock said.
Police said the suspect whom officers were trying to arrest was a man who had fled an Eldersburg home Thursday after a home invasion. Two men had burst into the home, restraining the homeowner's son, a daughter and the daughter's fiance with handcuffs and duct tape.
When the homeowner's other son, a 25-year-old man, came to the house, one of the suspects handcuffed him and forced him at gunpoint to go to a check-cashing and bail bonds business in Randallstown where the victim worked.
Relatives of the victim notified Baltimore County police, who rescued the victim and arrested Ronald J. Presco, 36, of Baltimore.
The second suspect fled the Eldersburg home before state police arrived.
http://wjz.com/topstories/local_story_346205034.html