"No Shoot Zone" activist Tyree Moorehead shot, killed by officer in West Baltimore
BALTIMORE -- A Baltimore police officer shot and killed a man who was wielding a knife in West Baltimore on Sunday, according to Baltimore Police Department Commissioner Michael Harrison.
That man, Tyree Moorehead, was the creator of the city's "no shoot zones." As an activist, he spray-painted that message across the face of Baltimore—from block to block and from neighborhood to neighborhood.
His father, Carlton Moorehead, confirmed to WJZ that his son had been killed by an officer while in the neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester.
Moorehead had been holding the knife while assaulting a female on the ground near the intersection of North Fulton Avenue and West Lafayette Avenue around 3:40 p.m., Harrison said.
The officer had been sent to the intersection to investigate a report of an armed person and reacted to the sight of a man holding the female at knifepoint, Harrison said. The officer shouted a warning at the man and then shot him, Harrison said.
An ambulance took Moorehead to a local hospital where he died of his injuries.
"The female was not critically injured and was not stabbed," he said.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott attended the press conference alongside Harrison.
"We cannot have folks assaulting women in the middle of the street in daylight in Baltimore City," Scott said.
Scott said that were it not for the officer's actions, he could have been discussing the untimely death of the woman too.
"We could be talking here tonight about a woman that has lost her life as well, but we're not because of the actions that they took quickly," Scott said.
Harrison noted that the Maryland Attorney General's Office has been assisting with the investigation into the shooting. BPD's consent decree monitor was at the site of the shooting on Sunday too.
Body camera footage will be made public in the near future, Harrison said.
Fraternal Order of Police president Mike Mancuso has gone to the homicide unit at police headquarters in downtown Baltimore in the aftermath of the shooting, union officials said.
Police shut down North Fulton Avenue between West Lanvale Street and West Mosher Street to protect the crime scene, according to WJZ reporter Cristina Mendez.
Several patrol cars were parked around the large crime scene.
Some of Moorehead's no-shoot messages are incredibly detailed. Others are generic.
More than 200 of Morehead's anti-violent messages have been scrawled across Baltimore.
All of them mark the place where someone was shot and killed in the hopes that the message may prevent additional violence.
Moorehead was fatally shot by an officer a block away from one of those zones.
