BALTIMORE _ A jury has found 17-year-old Dawnta Harris guilty of felony murder in the death last May of Baltimore County Police officer Amy Caprio.
The jury handed down the verdict Wednesday before a courtroom packed with the slain officer's family and fellow police.
Harris slumped and began crying when the jury read the guilty verdict. The teen faces life in prison. He was also found guilty of burglary.
Caprio, 29, had been called to investigate a suspicious Jeep in Perry Hall when she encountered the teen on a suburban cul-de-sac. She blocked his way out with her patrol car and ordered him to stop. The Jeep sped toward her and she drew her gun, screaming, "Stop! Stop!"
Harris stopped the Jeep and cracked the door as if to surrender. Caprio's body camera recorded the confrontation. Then he ducked down and gunned the Jeep. She fired once through the windshield _ she missed him _ before he ran her over.
An assistant medical examiner testified that Caprio suffered broken ribs and crushing injuries to internal organs. Neighbors testified that they found the officer of four years _ a wife and graduate of Loch Raven High School and Towson University _ in the street bleeding with tire marks on her legs.
Harris ditched the Jeep nearby. He was walking down the street when police picked him up. First he denied any knowledge of the Jeep or teens burglars.
During a 14 hour police interview, he gradually admitted to encountering the officer, shutting his eyes and gunning the Jeep.
Caprio's death set off a firestorm of debate, much of it racially charged. She was white; Harris, black.
Prominent African American defense attorney Warren Brown took on the teen's defense pro bono.
"I got in this case a day after Officer Caprio died," he told the jury, "after reading on social media somebody needs to string him up by his testicles."
Deputy State's Attorney Robin Coffin told jurors she was grateful they would decide the teen's fate _ not a lynch mob.
"Praise the Lord this isn't a lynching," she told them. "Praise the Lord we are not in that day."
The ninth grader from Gilmor Homes in West Baltimore was the first of four teens to stand trial in Caprio's death.
The case against Harris hinged on whether jurors believed the boy burglarized two homes with his friends before running over the officer. Prosecutors charged him as am adult with "felony murder," meaning a felony crime in which a death is foreseeable. For example, when a burglar breaks into a home, awakens the owner and kills him in a struggle. Prosecutors had to prove not only murder, but the burglary too.
In his closing argument Tuesday, Brown conceded that the teen killed Caprio.
"It ain't a matter of innocence. We know that he is responsible for her death and that's between him and God," Brown told the jury.
Instead, the defense attorneys sought to distance Harris from the burglaries, portraying him merely as a "dumb kid." They said the teen didn't ask too many questions when he hopped in a snazzy Jeep with his pals went joyriding in the suburbs. Even when the others began burglarizing homes, Brown said, Harris waited in the car.
"It's not in his spirit to hurt anybody. That's why he didn't go up in these homes," Brown told the jury.
Coffin, however, described Harris not as a naive teen hiding in the Jeep but as the lookout and getaway driver. She showed the jury text messages and phone call logs between Harris and the teens inside.
He waited outside in the Jeep 42 minutes while the teens burglarized one particular home, she told jurors.
"The defendant wants you to think he had no idea what's happening," Coffin said. "To suggest that he's not a primary actor is absurd."
Caprio was the 10th officer killed in the 144-year history of the Baltimore County Police Department. She was the first officer to die in the line of duty since Jason Schneider was gunned down while serving an arrest warrant in Catonsville six years ago.
