More details are emerging from a deadly police shooting of a teenager accused of stabbing four people in Montgomery County, Maryland, last month.
The Maryland Attorney General’s Office on Thursday released body and dashboard camera footage from the fatal shooting of Franklin Castro Ordonez, 19, of Gaithersburg, who is accused of the stabbings that happened on July 22.
Police said the stabbings began at 10:30 a.m., when a woman was stabbed at the Unique Thrift Store in Aspen Hill. A short time later, two other women were stabbed in the neck while they were at a yard sale close by.
The three women were hospitalized for their injuries, with one having critical injuries. All three are expected to survive, police said. A fourth male victim wasn’t hospitalized, and police said he had “superficial wounds.”
The Maryland Office of the Attorney General identified Ordonez as the man suspected of the stabbings, which police described as a “completely random” attack. The office identified Justin Lee as the officer who shot Ordonez. Lee has been with the department for about 1 and 1/2 years and is assigned to the Patrol Services Bureau.
The videos released are from the perspectives of a police dashboard camera and Lee’s body camera.
The dashboard camera video starts with an officer communicating with other officers on his radio before finding Ordonez walking through a neighborhood by a wooded area.
Ordonez can be seen running close by the police car twice, while the officer can be heard saying that the man was trying to stab his car.
Ordonez then runs into a front yard, where a resident was standing by a car. An officer can be heard telling the other man to “get away,” before the officer turns his car onto the sidewalk.
After the car has turned onto the front lawn, the dashboard video shows Lee out of his car and approaching Ordonez, who can be seen running toward Lee. The officer behind the dashboard camera can be heard yelling, “Lee, Lee. Get back in your car,” before shots ring out.
Lee’s body camera footage shows him running out of his car toward the 19-year-old and telling him to, “Give it up, man. Drop the knife. Give it up.”
Ordonez can be seen running toward Lee, as Lee says, “He’s charging at me … Drop the knife” several times. Three shots can be heard in the video, as Ordonez collapses on the sidewalk.
Ordonez was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.
Both Lee and the other officer who saw what happened have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard practice.
The Independent Investigations Division of the attorney’s office is still investigating the circumstances of the fatal shooting.
Editor’s Note: The Maryland Attorney General’s Office released the videos of the police shooting. The headline of this story has been corrected.
