Robert Hopkins' 911 Call To Police Before His Suicide

deanmine · #1 ● 10-17-2014, 05:47 AM

In Jan. 2014 Robert Hopkins went on a crime spree, shooting, wounding and robbing several people. He broke into a business and dialed 911, admitting his crimes and saying he wanted to surrender. Police surrounded the building, but he would not come out. He later killed himself.

A 28-year-old man police have described as a "one-man crime spree" told 911 dispatchers before taking his life that he had "killed all these people" and wanted to get his "story" out.

Robert Hopkins made the calls in the early morning of Jan. 10 from the offices of a North Baltimore nonprofit, and police released them Thursday as they continued to investigate the scope of the violence he claimed to have carried out.
Authorities said Hopkins broke into the office after shooting a man to death in the 2200 block of Maryland Ave.

Police have linked Hopkins to another killing and at least two other shootings and are trying to determine a motive. In the calls, he did not explain the story he wanted to get out.

"We're running out of investigative leads," said Lt. Eric Kowalczyk, a Baltimore police spokesman.

In the calls, a frantic Hopkins tells dispatchers he wants to surrender but does not trust police and that he fears that if he is killed, his explanation will not be heard.

"I killed all these people, and y'all don't know why," Hopkins tells the dispatcher during his first call.

In a second phone call, he says he has "nothing to lose."

"Y'all don't even care about the story. How'd I get a .40-caliber?" he says. Later, he says, "Once I die, the story's gone."

Much of the 30 minutes he spent on the line with dispatchers is unintelligible. He begs police not to "let me kill myself" and worries that officers will shoot him if he comes out of the building.

The dispatchers repeatedly try to calm him and assure him that he will not be shot if he comes out with his hands up and without a weapon.

"If you listen to what I told you, and do exactly as I told you, you will be fine," the dispatcher says.

"I want everyone to know what happened before I die," Hopkins says.

At some point after the calls, Hopkins turned the gun on himself, police said.

A ballistics match has linked the weapon to a double shooting Jan. 9 in a grocery store in the 500 block of S. Smallwood St. that left the owner's brother-in-law, Jose Abreu, 49, dead and the owner's wife wounded, police said.

Jose Melo, the store's owner, reopened this week and told The Baltimore Sun he had doubts that Hopkins was the suspect, saying he looked different from a photo of Hopkins that he was shown. He said his wife, who was wounded but survived, offered money, but the gunman refused to accept it.

"He take nothing. He come only to kill," Melo recalled.

Police had said earlier that they had been looking for Hopkins after the theft of a vehicle Dec. 28. The owner tracked it down using an OnStar security device and saw Hopkins. Police said Hopkins robbed the owner of $200 and then fired a gun and missed as the man fled.
At 2:30 a.m. Jan. 8, police said, Hopkins shot another driver in a sedan in the 3400 block of Reisterstown Road. The driver's injuries were not considered life-threatening.

After noon that day, police said, Hopkins entered a sedan in the 1100 block of N. Monroe St., pulled a gun on a woman and demanded that she perform a sex act. She refused and ran away as Hopkins fired in her direction. The woman was not injured.

Hopkins was a registered sex offender, stemming from a 2009 conviction for third-degree sex offense.

Spencer ******, 28, the man killed in what police believe was an attempted carjacking in the 2200 block of Maryland Ave. on the morning Hopkins killed himself, was buried Thursday in a private ceremony.