Trini cop killed in Baltimore

A 28-year-old Trinidadian female police officer and her boyfriend were shot dead on Wednesday in Baltimore, one day after returning from Trinidad where she attended the funeral service of her paternal grandmother. Leslie Holliday and Adam Vasquez, 26, two Baltimore city police officers were found shot to death in a Pikesville townhouse shortly after noon. Eugene Victor Perry, 33, who was once engaged to marry Holliday, was charged with two counts of first degree murder. He was being held without bail at the Baltimore County Detention Centre. Vazquez, a four-year veteran of the city force, and Holliday, a newcomer to the force and mother of three, both worked the midnight shift on Tuesday at the department’s Northwest District.

Holliday’s mother, Bernice Johnson, told the Baltimore Sun that her daughter was once engaged to Perry, but that ended. She then started dating Vasquez. A Baltimore County police spokesman confirmed that the three knew each other  and that the shooting was “not a random crime.” An adult couple and young child were at the house, in the 3900 block of M’Ladies Court, at the time of the shooting. Police said they were unsure of the connection between Vazquez and the adults. Neighbors said they believed Vazquez and the others were relatives. Police said the couple had let the suspect into the house and later called 911 after the two officers were shot on the second floor. Police recovered the handgun believed to have been used in the shootings, county police spokesman Bill Toohey said. The gun was not the officer’s service weapon, he said.

Holliday, who was raising a 12-year-old daughter and two younger sons in her mother’s Joppa home, had been divorced from the children’s father for about five years. Her mother said she was watching television when a crawler along the bottom of the screen reported that two city officers had been killed. Johnson left a voice mail message for her  daughter - “Leslie, call me” - then the television showed an image of the crime scene. “I said, ‘that’s Leslie’s car,’” Johnson, 62, added in a thick Caribbean accent. She later learnt that the suspect was the man to whom her daughter was engaged for about two years until last summer, when Holliday returned his ring. Holliday had told her mother of breaking off the engagement but did not say why, Johnson said. She said Holliday had recently been “seeing” Vasquez.

Holliday had returned Tuesday from Trinidad, where she attended her paternal grandmother’s funeral, Johnson said. Neighbours of Vasquez said he moved into the townhouse nine months ago. He was often seen walking his small dog, Peanut. “He was a very likable person,” said Jerry McDonald, a neighbour. “When I cut my grass, I cut his.” McDonald said he sometimes saw Holliday stop by Vasquez’s house. “She told me at one time that they had an agreement that they were friends because he wasn’t ready to get married,” McDonald said.