Baltimore County Police officers who exchanged deadly gunfire with a Parkville man on Nov. 24 also shot his wife, who was calling out for help.
An examination of ballistics evidence revealed that a bullet fired by police amid a shootout with Arnel Redfern, 52, also struck his wife Maxine Redfern, 48, according to the Independent Investigations Division of the Maryland Attorney General’s Office.
Her husband also shot Maxine Redfern “multiple times,” the ballistics evidence showed.
Police arrived at the couple’s Maple Avenue home at about 11:30 p.m. in response to call for a domestic disturbance. Body-camera videos showed that as police knocked on the door, a woman called out “help me!” from inside before the front door opened and gunfire erupted. Officers fired back toward the house while ducking behind cars in the driveway, according to the videos.
Arnel Redfern died at the scene and officers found Maxine Redfern dead inside the house.
Three officers — Christopher Schanberger, Andrew Burns and Andrew G. Langley — fired their weapons in the deadly encounter.
The attorney general’s office previously identified the officers by their last names and years of service according to the county officers’ union agreement, which bars the department from releasing officers’ full names after police shootings or in-custody deaths.
Maxine Redfern sought protection from the courts as she divorced Arnel Redfern, saying her husband had abused her psychologically and kept her from leaving the house. Although she was granted a temporary protective order and a final protective order, the final order did not mandate her husband to stay away from her or leave the house.
Arnel Redfern, who was convicted of charges in the 1990s that would prohibit him from owning a gun under state law, signed documents asserting that he owned no firearms. It’s not clear how he obtained the handgun police recovered in November.
The Independent Investigations Division is still investigating the fatal shooting along with three 2024 Baltimore County incidents: a fatal police shooting in January at a Pikesville gas station, the death of a man in police custody days later and the April death of a Baltimore Beltway driver following a police pursuit.
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