Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
Posted on 11/22/2021 6:41:08 PM PST by lightman
YORK - York County District Attorney Dave Sunday promised a robust after-action review of the handling of a Windsor Township man’s kidnapping and eventual killing of his two daughters after a four-day extended crime spree and manhunt through parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The hunt ended in tragedy Thursday when Robert Vicosa, a former Baltimore County Police Department officer, Vicosa’s alleged accomplice Tia Bynum, and both of Vicosa’s daughters were found fatally shot in a crashed vehicle along Ringgold Pike in Smithsburg, Maryland after police tried to pull them over.
Police told reporters they believed it was a murder-suicide by Vicosa.
Sunday had little new to say about the facts of the case at a Monday press conference here.
He also was careful not to point fingers of blame at anyone Monday, even as the state Attorney General’s office has agreed to take up a private criminal complaint filed against Chief Tim Damon of the York Area Regional Police Department - the agency with jurisdiction over the initial crime scene - for its handling of initial emergency protection from abuse orders sought by Viscosa’s wife against him on Sunday, Nov. 14.
“The reality is,” Sunday said, “there is evil in this world, and on even the very best of days and circumstances law enforcement cannot prevent every instance of evil or thwart every plan. There are many times that they do. But when tragedy occurs we must identify any means that.may exist to minimize outcomes such as this.”
As PennLive has reported, police did not serve the protection of abuse order or execute a companion search warrant at the Vicosa home in Windsor Township - both of which case records suggest they had obtained Sunday night - until Monday afternoon, by which time the father and his two daughters were already gone.
Sunday declined comment on that time lapse, calling it a tactical decision that others can better address.
Sunday said planning for the after action review has just launched, so no determination had been made as to whether it would be conducted solely in-house with different York County personnel or whether his office would retain an outside consultant to review the facts and steps taken in the Vicosa case.
“That’s something that we’re going to have to determine as we work through this process,” Sunday said.
But the district attorney did say he wants the review to cover strategic and tactical decisions, and what was learned from them; whether protocols and procedures adopted for domestic violence cases need to be updated; and even whether there are technologies that York police could deploy that would help in future cases like this.
‘These are all things that we must face head on, and that is what we will do.” Sunday said.
“Everybody trains for the most horrific of circumstances. And they train and they train and they train. Well, God willing, it’s not often that it happens.
“So when it does happen, we have a duty... to take a deep dive into circumstances like this to understand what happened, to understand when it happened, to understand the different choices that were made, and to look and see what can we do so that in the future, if something like this happens, we can be in a chance to minimize the probability of a tragic outcome like this,” Sunday said.
PennLive reached out to York Area Regional Police for comment on Sunday’s promised review, but a staffer who answered the call said they are not commenting on the Vicosa case due to the new Attorney General’s investigation.
PennLive had previously reported that In her emergency petition, Vicosa’s estranged wife alleged that he and Bynum held her at gun point and tied her up in the basement.
“He told me that he would kill me and our children if my family or the police were to arrive to the house,” she wrote. “He stated that he is aware of the amount of time it takes for the police to come into the house and that he would kill me first, the children and then himself. He stated he would rather us all be dead instead of his children being away from him.”
Police did not go to Vicosa’s home in Windsor Township until the next day., nearly 24 hours after the victim made her escape. By then, the ex-Baltimore County police officer and the girls were gone, according to court records.
Police searched for Vicosa and found he had used his phone at Bynum’s home also in Windsor Township. When police visited her home Monday, she admitted being at Vicosa’s home over the weekend, according to court records, but denied knowing where he and the kids were. Police left her home and apparently did not monitor it for Vicosa, because they were eventually able to get together and flee with the girls.
The ensuing days-long manhunt ended in tragedy Thursday when Vicosa, Bynum and both girls were found fatally shot in a crashed vehicle along Ringgold Pike in Smithsburg, Maryland after police tried to pull them over.
Police told reporters they believed it was a murder-suicide by Vicosa, a horrific ending not unlike what the estranged wife outlined in her protection from abuse paperwork four days earlier.
Troopers found Bynum in the front seat and Vicosa in the back seat with the girls: 6- and 7-year-old Aaminah and Gianna. All four suffered fatal gunshot wounds.
Maryland State Police told WJZ they believe Vicosa fired the shots that killed his daughters and Bynum, and then shot himself. Police told PennLive they were still working to confirm that.
According to Vicosa’s arrest warrant, his wife first met York Area Regional police at 3:48 p.m. Sunday at the Springettsbury police station. She was taken there after running into a Target in East York and asking an employee for help, out of fear her husband was following or tracking her.
To defeat such tracking devices, Springettsbury police drove the woman to York Area Regional Police, the force that covers Windsor Township.
Vicosa’s wife arrived at 4 p.m. for an interview at the York Area Regional Police Department, court records said. During this time, she detailed how Vicosa held a gun to her head Friday night, sexually assaulted her, bound her and forced her to smoke marijuana and snort a crushed OxyContin tablet.
It is unclear what actions police took next, but they didn’t execute a search warrant obtained Sunday night for Vicosa’s home until 3:30 p.m. Monday.
York County property records showed the home was bought in October 2016 for $220,000, under Vicosa’s wife’s name.
Police went to the house Monday, in part, to serve a temporary restraining order Vicosa’s wife had filed against him, according to a search warrant return for the Pleader Lane property.
In the basement, police said they found an emaciated and malnourished pit bull tied to a banister. The dog had no food, no water, and was kept tied up in the basement with a busted-out back door, amid 30-degree weather.
About two hours later, York Area Regional police visited Bynum at her home at 245 Azalea Drive in Windsor Township, after Vicosa’s phone pinged there, court records said.
Bynum answered the door with a gun on her side and allowed police to search her home for Vicosa and the kids.
The next day, police received reports of a kidnapping around 11:50 a.m. Tuesday at 40 Husson Road in Red Lion, according to court records. The woman who lived at that address reportedly told investigators Vicosa pointed a handgun at her and forced her to turn over the keys to her 2014 silver Volkswagen Jetta. Vicosa and the girls got inside and took off, police said.
At one point Tuesday, York Area Regional police said they were close to putting out an Amber Alert. However, police said Wednesday they canceled plans for one when the Jetta turned up abandoned, with Vicosa’s medication and cell phone still inside. Police said they never put out an Amber Alert because they did not believe they had enough definitive information on what vehicle Vicosa and the girls were traveling in at any given point.
Bynum and her Lexus G35 disappeared between Tuesday and Wednesday when police went back to her house, court records said. Police concluded she, Vicosa and his daughters were traveling in it for a period of time. Both Bynum and Vicosa were considered armed and dangerous, and police said the girls were in “extreme danger.”
Vicosa was with Bynum when he carjacked a man at gunpoint Wednesday afternoon Cockeysville/Towson area, according to Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt.
The pair forced the man to drive them to several locations around the Baltimore metropolitan area before they freed him, uninjured, police said. It remains unclear whether Vicosa’s daughters were present during the carjacking.
York Area Regional and Baltimore County police continued to plead without success for the safe return of the 6- and 7-year-old girls.
The bad blood from Vicosa appeared to stem from a child custody dispute, but it’s unclear when the couple separated and whether there was ever any legal documentation filed about their split. But on Oct. 21, a York County judge approved a stipulated child custody order for Robert Vicosa and his wife.
At that time, the couple appeared to be getting along. Judge Andrea Marceca Strong even praised the couple for agreeing to that arrangement.
“The parties, to their credit, have reached an agreement to resolve their issues,” the judge wrote.
Both parents were supposed to have custody of the children several days each week. A holiday schedule had been worked out.
The order also stated that the “welfare of the children” was supposed to be a “prime” consideration of both parents.
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
This should not matter, but this is the racially charged atmosphere of Bidenistan: The two rogue (and fired) Baltimore County cops were black.
Fatal hestiation, methinks.
That was my suspicion too
I think, though, that he knew the “rules” being a former cop, and Baltimore County is a lot bigger than the jurisdiction covering the wife’s and lady friend’s abodes. He kept switching cars and they were never able to issue an amber alert because of his shenanigans, for example.
I feel sorry for this police chief just because he had such a malicious ex-cop to deal with. I know that some jurisdictions have a rule that your pension gets cancelled if you are convicted of a notorious crime, and it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if the ex-cop would take that step to keep his wife from collecting his pension. I hope the people examining this case take that into account.
The PA border counties are plagued by situations like this, though seldom so extreme, because Maryland allows our-of-state residency for their LEO’s but in Pennsylvania holding a valid PA driver’s license (ensuring residency) is a requirement for hiring and certification.
I suspect that if the PA jurisdictions pooled their resources and set up shop countywide, that they would have more resources to bring to bear when the Vicosa’s of the world happen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.