October 16, 2009|By Justin Fenton | Justin Fenton,justin.fenton@baltsun.com
A paramedic has been suspended without pay after an investigation into an incident in which a man shot by Baltimore police was mistakenly pronounced dead and left on a convenience store floor for 30 minutes.
Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright said the paramedic, whose name he declined to release on the grounds that it is a personnel matter, was suspended for 29 days without pay and will have to undergo retraining as a result of the Aug. 1 incident. Cartwright declined to discuss details of the investigation and suspension.
Michael Richard Quarles, 51, was shot in the head by a police officer responding to a burglary at Shon's Food Market in the 4700 block of Garrison Blvd. Police said Quarles lunged at officers with a long screwdriver that officers thought was a knife, and one officer identified in charging documents only as "Detective F-182," fired one shot that struck Quarles in the head.
Fire officials said Quarles' body was awaiting transport to the medical examiner's office when police observed the man either moving or making sounds and requested that the medics return to the scene.
Quarles was charged Aug. 3 with second-degree burglary, attempted first-degree murder, assault and assaulting a law enforcement officer. He remains at a rehabilitation facility recovering from his injuries.
Charging documents show that Quarles was shot by "Detective F-182," the sequence number assigned to Officer Richard S. Lyles, a 16-year veteran, according to personnel records.
At the beginning of the year, police initiated a policy under which they do not identify the names of officers involved in shootings. But the names are typically listed in charging documents filed in court.
