Cockeysville man gets 2 life sentences for shooting county police officers, standoff

Dan Belson

The Baltimore Sun

May 20, 2025

David Linthicum was sentenced Tuesday to two consecutive life sentences, plus 30 years, for firing at multiple Baltimore County Police officers in 2023 and initiating a multi-county pursuit after seriously injuring one lawman.

Linthicum, 26, showed little emotion while receiving the lengthy sentence after hours of often-emotional testimony from his family as well as three of the four police officers whom he was convicted of attempting to kill. He smiled at family members when he was escorted in and out of the courtroom.

Tuesday’s sentence caps off more than two years of proceedings in Baltimore County Circuit Court following Linthicum’s arrest in February 2023 at the end of a striking series of events that locked down parts of Cockeysville and Harford County, shut down schools, and left one officer with long-term injuries.

What transpired over those 40 hours affected a “slew of victims,” leaving many of them “forever impacted,” Assistant State’s Attorney Zarena Sita said at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.

Baltimore County District Public Defender James Dills said that those “tragic” two days “changed the lives of so many people,” but Linthicum’s actions “came from a place of unbelievable sadness.”

In a statement read by Dills, Linthicum said he didn’t intend or expect to hurt “anyone but myself” that day. He also apologized to the police officers, neighbors and friends he had hurt, noting he had “finally hit a breaking point” from years of trauma and depression that day. He said he wanted to better himself and build a family while helping his own, asking Baltimore County Circuit Judge Garret Glennon for a “single chance to do so.”

Several of Linthicum’s family members had testified that the Cockeysville resident was always a kind, loving relative who had faced pain and isolation. They said he became more withdrawn and depressed in the years leading up to the multi-day pursuit and standoff that led to his arrest. Prosecutors and police, meanwhile, said he was dangerous and asked Baltimore County Circuit Judge Garret Glennon for a harsher sentence.

Glennon, who Linthicum’s defense attorneys have argued was biased against the 26-year-old at trial, largely sided with prosecutors’ insistence that Linthicum deserved a strong prison sentence. The judge described the two-day standoff as a “horrific and violent episode” and called Linthicum, who was convicted last year of four counts of attempted murder as well as weapons offenses and a count of carjacking, as a “very dangerous individual.”

Glennon ultimately sentenced Linthicum to three concurrent life sentences for each of three counts of attempted first-degree murder, a consecutive life sentence for the attempted murder of Detective Jonathan Chih and 30 consecutive years for stealing the lawman’s police truck. He also sentenced Linthicum to shorter concurrent sentences for separate firearms use convictions. He will be eligible for parole.

Calling family, friends and a developmental psychologist for testimony, Linthicum’s defense team argued during Tuesday’s hearing that he had descended into a deep depression in the years before the episode.

They also echoed their arguments from the lengthy trial that the police’s initial response to a 911 call had escalated how the otherwise “sweet” young man reacted, triggering a trauma response from a deeply scarred person who had episodes of suicidal ideation from a young age.

Linthicum’s father had called police in February 2023, concerned that his son was suicidal and had access to a weapon. When police arrived at Linthicum’s Cockeysville home and followed his father into the basement, Linthicum fired a rifle at them, striking one officer and initiating a hunt for him across Baltimore County.

The next evening, Linthicum shot and critically injured Chih and stole his police truck, traveling to Fallston, where he was arrested early the next day following a lengthy standoff.

Chih, a Woodlawn narcotics detective who responded to Cockeysville to assist with the search for Linthicum, “thought he was going to die that day,” Sita said. He and Officer Barry Jordan, who was wounded in Linthicum’s home the day before, now bear physical scars “for the rest of their lives,” while they and others remain with permanent mental trauma, Sita said.

Chih did not testify on Tuesday. Jordan, who retired from the department in December, said in a victim-impact statement that speaking at the sentencing hearing was his “last piece of business before closing the door” to his career. He said that he survived “only by God’s grace.”

Linthicum “didn’t care if his actions would destroy my four children,” testified Officer April Burton, who responded to Linthicum’s house with Jordan.

Dills and Deborah Katz Levi, director of special litigation for the Maryland Office of Public Defender, noted that Linthicum had faced severe trauma as a child: he grew up witnessing bitter feuds between his parents culminating in divorce, struggled in school, and later witnessed his father’s arrest on child pornography charges. He found refuge in his beloved dogs as well as hobbies like glassblowing, but showed signs of severe depression in his early adulthood

They called numerous witnesses who described Linthicum’s behavior in the 2023 episode as severely different from the kind young man that they had known, and still saw after his incarceration. His ex-girlfriend’s mother testified in court that she remembered Linthicum as charming, intelligent, yet a little shy, describing fond memories of times when he would plant strawberries with his girlfriend, or when he stayed up all night to watch his dog, Dexter, when he got the puppy.

But there were dark days ahead, and Linthicum’s depression became more visible: “It was almost like he was underwater from it” at times, Jeannie Ripley said in court.

Linthicum “desperately wants to change,” said his cousin Anna Bishop, who testified that the 26-year-old is”not beyond redemption.”

Levi, who plans to appeal Linthicum’s case, said that she had personally witnessed dramatic changes in her client in the years since his arrest. At first, he was still deeply suicidal and hardly willing to talk about his case, and she had asked Linthicum to hold out until their next meeting.

They started becoming closer, and Linthicum became more open to meeting with his defense team, as they spoke on the side about working together in the future on helping change the criminal justice system.

The promise to work together to improve the justice system “kept him alive,” Levi said.

“I hope and I pray that I wasn’t lying to him,” he said.