Condition Of Shot Queen Anne's Deputy Improved To Serious

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The Queen Anne's Sheriff's Deputy who was shot early Thursday in Chestertown "incurred a few issues causing some concern" overnight but his condition has been upgraded from critical to serious, according to a Sheriff's office spokesman.

"As Dr. Scalia said during the yesterday's press conference [Deputy Warren Scott Hogan] suffered a devastating injury and faces additional surgeries and a long recovery period," the release went on to say.

A GoFundMe page has been set up by the Queen Anne's County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #108 to help with Hogan's medical expenses.

The man who Hogan exchanged gunfire with, 52-year-old James L. Rich III, was pronounced dead at University of Maryland Shore Medical Center Thursday morning.

Police say it was around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday when Rich's girlfriend, who was staying with him at his home in the 200 block of Edmore Road in Chestertown, sent a text message to her father stating they had been involved in a physical altercation.

Her father called 911 and deputies responded to the home, but both Rich and the woman had left. It was later determined that her father had picked her up and taken her to the Sheriff's office.

Shortly after midnight, the woman gave a report on the domestic violence incident and was escorted back to the home to get some of her belongings.

When the woman, the Deputy and the woman's parents arrived back at the home, Rich and his teen son were already there.

Investigators say they started arguing again, at which point Rich went into a back bedroom and armed himself with a shotgun. He fired a round, and continued toward Deputy Warren Scott Hogan, firing again. Hogan returned fire. Both were hit.

Sara Smith is the director of the neighborhood watch in the Chestertown neighborhood, and knew the suspect  and his girlfriend well.

She says she had "no indications of that whatsoever" that the suspect could do something like this.

"She has a family besides this, she has children, it's very sad," says Smith. Smith says it's no secret things were rocky in the relationship, but she says it's hard to believe it escalated to this.

"Relationships change and end and it can cause some very serious consequences sometimes and this is one of them. We all have known and loved their children and their families. We've all done things together," she says.

Hogan, who is a four-year veteran, was flown to shock trauma and is currently listed inserious condition. He was hit by a shotgun blast into the torso.

"The zone of injury is much, much bigger with a shotgun blast," Dr. Thomas Scalea, is physician in chief at the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, said at a Thursday morning press conference.

When he was admitted, he was "awake and talking but clearly critically injured" when he was admitted, Scalea says. "We have completed at least the first of his operative procedures. He is still quite ill but we are hopeful."

"He looks like he's in good spirits, the best he can be for the traumatic event that occurred," says Queen Anne's County Sheriff Gary Hoffman.

Sheriff Gary Hofmann says Hogan is a four-year veteran of the Queen Anne County Sheriff's Office, though he does have about 7 years of prior law enforcement experience.

Hogan was wearing body armor, but the blast hit him below that area that body armor covers, Hofmann said.

State Police spokesman Greg Shipley says Hogan was wearing a body camera, as well, but that video has not yet been released.

Police have served a search warrant at the home as part of their investigation. Maryland State Police are now investigating.

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