1 Year After Parkville Shooting, Officer Returns To Work: Police

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD — The police officer shot and wounded a year ago in Parkville will return to work Thursday, according to the Baltimore County Police Department.

Officer First Class T. Hays will meet with the media on her first day back, at 9 a.m. Thursday at the Baltimore County Police Department's Training Academy at 7200 Sollers Point Road.

Hays spent the last year recovering from a shooting that occurred after a man called 911 to report a stranger was waving a gun at him in his home in the 3000 block of Linwood Avenue May 2, 2019.

Robert Uhl Johnson, 76, had filed the report and hung up when the call-taker asked for additional information, and police said he did not answer upon call-back.

Arriving officers found Johnson sitting in a chair facing the front door. He would not get up or come out of the residence, according to police, who said that when one officer tried to speak with him, he said that he called 911 and there was nobody else in the home.

Officers entered the residence and ordered Johnson to keep his hands in the air, but police said he lowered his right hand to his thigh, picked up a handgun and stated: "I'm sorry I have to do this," pointing the gun at police. That prompted four officers, including Hays, to fire. Later, homicide investigators determined Johnson's weapon was unloaded. They also said he had left his will and burial request out for officers to find.

All four officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave, which is routine during an investigation into a police-involved shooting.

Investigators determined Hays was wounded by what appeared to have been friendly fire from a fellow officer.

It was the second shooting Hays had been involved in during her 13.5-year career on the force, police said at the time; the last one was in 2008.

The officer was transported to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center and was immediately taken into surgery, police said, for treatment of an upper body injury.

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