Fairfax Police Killer Escaped Mental Patient

Michael Kennedy, the 18-year-old who killed a Fairfax County, Virginia detective and wounded two others yesterday, is was an escaped mental patient.

Kennedy escaped from a psychiatric facility in Rockville on April 18, then carjacked a Toyota 4-Runner, Montgomery County Court records show. Later that evening, Kennedy turned himself in to the Sully District police station, Maj. Bob Callahan, commander of the Fairfax police criminal investigations bureau, said at this morning’s news conference.

Two officers were wounded, one critically, during several exchanges of gunfire with Kennedy. Kennedy was killed in the shootout, but Callahan said an autopsy will be performed to see if he was shot by an officer or killed himself. Officials have not released the names of the injured officers.

This is especially disturbing since, after the carjacking, he turned himself in and was released on bail within 24 hours. Wouldn’t a records check to ensure there were no outstanding warrants and that he wasn’t escaped from the funny farm be standard operating procedure?!

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. rick says:

    Thank you NRA! Who needs that many guns and why weren’t they better secured. Espcially if they new their son was troubled and shot the dog weeks earlier! Does any one learn from things that happen in the past?

  2. Boyd says:

    Yes, rick, preventing upstanding, law-abiding citizens from exercising their 2nd Amendment-sanctioned rights is the best way to keep firearms out of the hands of crazies and criminals.

    Sheesh. How naïve.

  3. McGehee says:

    Rick, I didn’t know the NRA was this wacko’s parents. The things I learn on the Internet!