Emmanuel Okutuga, a man who was identified as a suspect in the Feb. 16 assault on a UMUC employee, was shot dead by Montgomery County Police on Saturday night.
Police said Okutuga, 26, was engaged in an assault similar to the one that occurred last week outside of 4716 Pontiac Street, a building that houses University of Maryland University College offices. On Feb. 16, a UMUC employee told police a man punched him and fled with an ice pick in hand.
This weekend’s incident involved a security guard at City Place Mall in Silver Spring, police officials said.
When police arrived at the mall, Okutuga, a Bowie State University student, was “brandishing a sharp-edged object and making several threats,” Montgomery County Police spokeswoman Lucille Baur said.
The object was later identified as an ice pick.
Although initial reports of an ice pick being used in the confrontation outside of the UMUC building were dismissed by University Police, spokesman Ken Leonard said yesterday there was an ice pick present at last week’s attack. It was not used in the assault, and police are unsure whether the man identified as Okutuga had it with him the whole time or if he found it in the building around the time of the attack.
Officer Christopher Jordan, who worked for Montgomery County Police for more than four years, confronted Okutuga at the mall Saturday and ordered him several times to put his weapon down.
But the suspect refused, Baur said.
Jordan shot Okutuga twice; although police declined to say where he was shot, they did say Okutuga was hit both times. He was pronounced dead at the scene at about 5:15 p.m.
After hearing about this incident, University Police thought the physical description given by the UMUC employee Feb. 16 was similar to the description of Okutuga.
The UMUC employee, whom police would not name, identified Okutuga from a photograph as the same man that punched him and ran off with an ice pick last week.
University Police had contact with Okutuga between incidents, Leonard said. On Thursday, University Police questioned Okutuga after he was seen waving his arms at motorists at Baltimore Avenue and Berwyn Road. He was not doing anything illegal, Leonard said, and Okutuga described his actions as “giving the peace sign to drivers driving by,” according to police. He was released.
Despite being registered as a Bowie State student, Okutuga had no fixed address, and several reports suggested he was homeless. Police could not verify that.
“We have no fixed address, but that doesn’t make him homeless,” Baur said. “We did not provide those news sources with that information, but we couldn’t confirm an address for him.”
Bowie State’s news website said Okutuga was a Takoma Park resident who transferred to the university in fall 2010 to study communication.
Leonard added that Okutuga’s family hinted at underlying issues in Okutuga’s personal life.
“I know the family was saying he was suffering from some mental issues, and it probably played a role in this case,” Leonard said. “It’s a sad situation either way.”
Jordan, the officer who shot and killed Okutuga on Saturday, is on administrative leave until an investigation is completed, Baur said.
“This is a standard investigation,” she said. Every time an officer uses his gun, we investigate to make sure it was under the right circumstances.”
egan at umdbk dot com
