PGPD Armed Suspect Involved in Officer-Involved Shooting in Hyattsville City Identified

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Leonard Shand
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The armed suspect involved in the officer-involved shooting in Hyattsville City is 49-year-old Leonard Shand of no fixed address.

On September 26th, at approximately 7:15 am, City of Hyattsville Police officers responded to a coffee shop on East-West Highway and Belcrest Road. The caller stated that a man who had attacked an employee with a pipe three days earlier had returned to the store and was now across the street. When those officers arrived, they encountered Shand outside armed with two knives, one in each hand. Hyattsville City officers immediately urged him to drop the weapons. Hyattsville City Police also requested the assistance of Prince George's County Police officers who responded to the scene. An officer with Mount Rainier Police also responded to assist.

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Over a period of nearly 30 minutes, officers worked to de-escalate the situation. Hyattsville City Police deployed their Tasers three times over several minutes. Those Taser deployments did not take effect. Pepper spray was also deployed. A Hyattsville City Police officer also deployed a less-lethal shotgun that discharges bean bags. Preliminarily, it appears the officer shot 4 bean bags at the armed suspect. All of these non-lethal techniques did not take effect during the extensive effort to get Shand to drop the two knives.

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Approximately 30 minutes after the initial call, Shand began charging at a Hyattsville City Police officer while still carrying the knives. At that moment, six Hyattsville City Police officers, three PGPD officers and one Mount Rainier officer discharged their service weapons, striking Shand. The group of officers immediately retrieved their trauma kits and for several minutes performed CPR on Shand until medical personnel arrived. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

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Investigators are currently analyzing hours of body-worn camera, dash-cam and cell phone video of this incident.

We will release the names of our three PGPD officers who were involved in this incident on Friday. As is standard operating procedure, our officers are on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. Any questions about the identities and statuses of the Hyattsville City and Mount Rainier officers should be directed to the respective departments.

At the request of both Hyattsville City and Mount Rainer Police Departments, the Prince George's County Police Department's Special Investigative Response Team will lead the investigation into the officers' actions surrounding this morning's incident.

Anyone with information on this investigation is asked to call 301-856-2660.

Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: https://so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at https://so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at https://so.md/expungeme.