Police launched a manhunt yesterday for a man suspected in Monday night's shooting death of a decorated Maryland state trooper during an undercover drug deal in Washington.
The search for Kofi Apea Orleans-Lindsay, 23, extended to Baltimore, where police say he has acquaintances. The suspect, whose last known address was in Silver Spring, was charged in an arrest warrant with first-degree murder.
He is charged with shooting Trooper Edward M. Toatley, 37, in the right side of the head as the officer sat in the driver's seat of a sport utility vehicle while trying to negotiate an undercover drug buy in Northeast Washington.
"He's on the run and we're trying to locate him," said Assistant Chief William P. McManus of the Metropolitan (D.C.) Police Department.
Last night, the suspect's father, John K. Orleans-Lindsay, urged his son to surrender. "It is a sad day for Maryland," the retired economist from Rockville said.
Toatley, who lived with his wife and three children in Halethorpe in Baltimore County, was regarded as a highly successful undercover drug investigator who infiltrated gangs from Baltimore to the Eastern Shore.
Most recently, the 16-year veteran was deputized as a federal agent to join an FBI Safe Streets Task Force that is targeting drug dealing along the Prince George's County-Washington, D.C., line.
He is the eighth police officer from Maryland killed in the line of duty this year. He is survived by his wife, Inez, sons Antoinne, 18, and Daniel, 5, and a daughter, Taylor, who is 18 months old.
"He was the kind of trooper that if they called him to come back to the office on his day off, he would press his uniform and show up with a smile," said Sgt. Michael Hawkins, a close friend. "He was like a big brother to most, a little brother to some and he was always there for everybody."
Monday night, Toatley was working with several other officers and FBI agents targeting drug dealing near Douglas Street and Queens Chapel Road, a residential neighborhood of two-story single family homes.
Toatley parked his sports utility vehicle on a dark corner, apparently as part of a prearranged drug deal about 8:30 p.m. A man got in the passenger seat and Toatley handed him money, which sources said was $3,000.
McManus said the man left and returned five minutes later. Officers thought he had the drugs, but McManus said he opened the passenger door and shot Toatley once in the head.
Officers watching nearby quickly ran to the car, but could not catch the fleeing gunman in time.
JoAnna Benema, 81, who lives in a house that overlooks the shooting scene, said she heard an officer scream: "He's out, he's out. Call the police."
Toatley was taken by ambulance to Washington Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead at 11:05 p.m. during surgery.
McManus said there is no indication that the shooter knew Toatley was a police officer. "There was no evidence of any duress," he said, adding that other officers were in "eye sight" of the deal.
Mitchell, the state police superintendent, said Toatley had done other drug buys with the suspected shooter. He also said it did not appear that Toatley's cover was blown.
"That thought crossed our minds, but all things considered, the shooter didn't act like it," Mitchell said. "There were things that happened that would indicate that perhaps [the shooter] didn't know he was an officer. Nothing glaring jumped out."
McManus said Orleans-Lindsay has been arrested five times since 1994 for a variety of crimes, including car theft, burglary and drug dealing in Washington and its Maryland suburbs.
Toatley's unmarked vehicle was equipped with a hidden camera and microphones, but police would not comment on what was captured on tape.
The shooting is similar to the 1984 shooting of Baltimore police Detective Marcellus Ward, who was killed during an undercover drug deal on a third-floor apartment above a candy shop.
That was the year Toatley graduated from the police academy. He began his career patrolling Interstate 95 out of the Waterloo Barracks in Howard County. He quickly developed an affinity for undercover drug work, where he played the role of drug dealer and had to develop relationships with some of the area's most violent criminals.
"Hand-to-hand drug buys are extremely dangerous and volatile," said Col. David B. Mitchell, superintendent of the Maryland State Police, who added that Toatley had made "dozens and dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of hand-to-hand drug buys in his career. He was one of our most experienced, seasoned undercover narcotics detectives we had."
His job was so sensitive that his photo was not released after his death for fear that drug dealers might identify one of his undercover colleagues as a police officer.
