Baltimore Police Shot In Ambush

On Saturday morning, the man forced himself into a home in Northeast Baltimore, where he threatened a woman with a gun and fired a shot either into the air or at the ground, Bealefeld said. Then, about 11 a.m., police received another domestic violence call, this time from a home on Harlem Avenue. McMillion responded, and a woman there told him a man had assaulted her and fled the area. The officer used the victim's cell phone to call the suspect and persuade him to return to the scene, police said. When a man in a red Ford Explorer pulled up and McMillion confronted him, the suspect opened fire with a 9 mm handgun, striking McMillion, police said.
The officer took cover and called for backup. Shaurette arrived, and the suspect fired through the driver's side window, hitting him in the chest, abdomen and left arm, police said. The officer crawled out through the passenger's side of the patrol car and shot the suspect twice, hitting him in the thigh and arm.

Court records show that Sinclair, whose most recent address is the 2500 block of Lauretta Avenue in West Baltimore, has a pattern of domestic violence. In June, a 24-year-old woman whose address is not listed received a final protective order against Sinclair. Such orders typically last a year. Bealefeld said Saturday that the first woman assaulted, at a home in the 3200 block of Lake Avenue, was believed to be a former girlfriend of Sinclair's. Another woman, who filed for divorce from Sinclair in July 2008, also had filed for protective orders against him. Her address in court records is in the 2400 block of Harlem Ave., the site of Saturday's shooting.
Twice in 2008, the woman's orders were granted but then rescinded at her request. In March 2008, Sinclair was charged criminally with assaulting his wife, but the case was dismissed when she invoked her spousal privilege and refused to testify. It appeared from the court record that their divorce has not been finalized.

Apart from the assault allegations, Sinclair's criminal history shows a record of arrests and occasional convictions for crimes such as having an open container of alcohol and soliciting a ride. He was convicted twice in 2004 for drug possession, and has a half-dozen older drug convictions.
Sinclair was charged twice more than a decade ago with illegal handgun possession, but prosecutors dropped both cases. Shaurette and McMillion were the second and third officers to be shot this year in the line of duty. In January, an officer was shot twice in the face while trying to make an undercover drug purchase in Seton Hill. Dante Arthur, an eight-year veteran of the department, required reconstructive surgeries. Richard P. Dutton, the senior administrative physician at Shock Trauma, said the officer shot in the abdomen - Shaurette - needed hours of surgery for his wounds