Officer charged in Washington-area shooting spree that killed three

By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal officer was charged on Saturday with first-degree murder after a two-day shooting rampage outside Washington D.C. that killed his wife and two apparent strangers and wounded three others, police said.

The suspect, Eulalio Tordil, a 62-year-old police officer with the Federal Protective Service, was arrested without incident on Friday in Silver Spring, Maryland, a Washington suburb where one of the shootings took place.

Tordil has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and four firearms violations for Friday’s attacks in two shopping center parking lots, the Montgomery County Police Department said on Twitter.

He is being held without bond and will have a review hearing on Monday afternoon, it said.

Tordil is suspected of shooting his estranged wife, Gladys Tordil, and a bystander who came to her aid on Thursday outside High Point High School in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Gladys Tordil, a chemistry teacher at another high school, was picking up the couple’s two daughters when the shooting occurred.

Tordil was on leave, having surrendered his gun and badge after his wife obtained a protective order to keep him away, an official with the Federal Protective Service said.

Montgomery County Police assistant chief Russ Hamill told reporters at a news conference on Saturday evening that Tordil then purchased a Glock handgun, which was later found in his vehicle. That gun was used at least in the two subsequent shootings on Friday, Hamill said.

Tordil eluded a manhunt and is suspected of shooting a woman and two men who came to her aid outside the Westfield Montgomery Mall in affluent Bethesda, Maryland during an attempted carjacking, Hamill said. One of the men later died.

Hamill called the two men heroes and said their actions likely saved the woman’s life.

Tordil is alleged to have shot dead another 65-year-old woman about 30 minutes later at the Aspen Hill Shopping Center in Silver Spring in another attempted carjacking, Hamill said.

Police have said there was no apparent relationship between Tordil and those shot on Friday.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson and Curtis Skinner; Editing by Digby Lidstone and James Dalgleish)