Friends and family of Maurice Daniels gathered in Baltimore to demand justice, saying they want answers about why more than 70 police bullets ended his life after a car chase that began with an armed carjacking over the July 4th weekend. Police shot and killed the 42-year-old during a traffic stop in northwest Baltimore, and the case remains under investigation months later.
According to WMAR 2 News, Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley confirmed that officers fired more than 70 shots during the encounter. Body camera footage reviewed by the station shows Daniels initially raising his hands before dropping one hand to reach for something inside the vehicle, at which point officers determined he was reaching for what turned out to be a replica BB gun. All of the officers involved remain on administrative leave while the investigation continues.
The confrontation followed an armed carjacking reported on July 4 in Towson, in Baltimore County, according to CBS Baltimore. The station reported that Baltimore Police's aviation unit, known as Foxtrot, tracked the stolen 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan for roughly 20 minutes before ground units cornered the vehicle near Clifton and Dennison avenues in West Baltimore.
What the Body Camera Video Shows
Per the same station's report, footage captured an officer positioned at an angle shouting “gun” multiple times after spotting what appeared to be a handgun inside the van, while another officer standing near the window held a glass-breaking tool without drawing a firearm. Worley has said officers are trained to shout alerts the moment they spot a weapon, a protocol that appears to have set off the burst of gunfire.
Deputy Commissioner Brian Nadeau said during a news conference that the recovered replica BB gun was dark, unmarked, and lacked the orange or yellow safety tips typically required on toy firearms, making it look nearly identical to a black Colt 1911 handgun in low light. Federal tip regulations apply to airsoft guns but do not identically cover all BB guns, leaving room for confusion in split-second encounters like this one.
Who the Officers Are
The Maryland Office of the Attorney General publicly identified the six Baltimore Police officers involved in the shooting on July 7: Officer Charles Blackman, a six-year veteran; Officer David Weldon, a five-year veteran; Sergeant Kevin Rivera, an eight-year veteran; Officer Antonio Groomes, a five-year veteran; Officer Darrius Hicklin, a three-year veteran; and Officer Al-Shakier Drake, an eight-month veteran. All six are assigned to the department's Operations Bureau.
State records released the same day confirmed Daniels was a resident of Millersville, an unincorporated community in Anne Arundel County roughly 20 miles south of Baltimore, meaning he was outside his home county when the pursuit and shooting occurred.
Independent Investigation Underway
The case falls under the authority of the Attorney General's Independent Investigations Division, which was granted independent power under Maryland police accountability legislation enacted in 2021 and expanded in 2023 to investigate civilian deaths caused by police and make final charging decisions. That division operates separately from both local police and local prosecutors.
Under the division's operational protocols, body-worn camera and dashcam recordings from fatal police encounters are generally required to be released to the public within 20 business days of an incident. Footage from the Daniels shooting was released on July 10.
A History of Distrust Around Replica Guns in Baltimore
The use of a replica firearm in this case lands in a city with a fraught history on the subject. Baltimore's City Council enacted a citywide ban on replica firearms in December 2016, imposing fines up to $1,000 for possessing imitation handguns that can reasonably be mistaken for real weapons, a law passed after earlier police shootings involving teenagers carrying BB guns.
That history is compounded by testimony from the 2018 federal corruption trial of the Baltimore Police Gun Trace Task Force, in which officers said supervisors had previously instructed them to keep replica BB guns in patrol vehicles to plant on suspects in the event of an accidental shooting. Six former members of that elite squad pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges, a scandal that still shadows community trust in police accounts involving BB guns.
Pursuit Policy Under Scrutiny Statewide
The Daniels case also arrives amid a broader statewide reckoning over police chases. In a January report, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown recommended policy reforms to restrict high-speed pursuits for nonviolent offenses, revealing that vehicle chases had caused 30 of the 86 police-involved civilian fatalities investigated by state authorities since 2021 — nearly 35% of all cases the Independent Investigations Division has reviewed.
For now, the criminal and administrative questions surrounding the shooting remain open. The Independent Investigations Division has not announced a charging decision, and it alone holds the authority to determine whether any of the six officers face criminal liability for the more than 70 rounds fired at Daniels.
