Two Baltimore County Police officers told jurors how a call from a suicidal young man’s father ended with them running from gunfire and whisking a wounded coworker away for medical care.

David Linthicum, who spent his 26th birthday in court Wednesday, is charged with five counts of first-degree attempted murder along with assault, firearms and carjacking charges. He is accused of firing at multiple county police officers in February 2023, including two who were shot and wounded: Officer Barry Jordan and Detective Jonathan Chih.

The trial for Linthicum, ultimately captured in Harford County after a two-day search, began Tuesday in Baltimore County Circuit Court with testimony from his father and Jordan.

Two other officers, April Burton and David Allen, responded to John Linthicum’s Feb. 8, 2023, call about his suicidal son David, who he told the 911 dispatcher had a gun.

Burton, who went by her maiden name Arnett at the time, asked John Linthicum, “Where’s the gun?” soon after arriving at the Cockeysville home, according to a body-camera video. He replied that there was a semi-automatic pistol inside a black Mustang parked outside, and that his son might have a rifle downstairs in the basement.

Burton and Jordon followed John Linthicum inside, eventually followed by Allen, and Burton knocked on the locked basement door.

“David, it’s Officer Arnett, can I talk to you?” she asked calmly, according to videos.

A high school resource officer who joined Baltimore County Police seven years ago, Burton testified that she’d successfully de-escalated such situations before by building rapport with people who said they wanted to kill themselves.

According to multiple videos, John Linthicum descended the basement steps, followed by Jordan, Burton and Allen. As they approached Linthicum’s bedroom, Burton drew her firearm only after Jordan told her, “He’s got a gun,” and just seconds before shots rang out.

“He opened fire and we immediately turned to the right and started running up the steps,” Burton said. “The debris is smacking me in the face from the shots.”

Allen said he was “terrified” during the first volley of shots, then “even more terrified” during a second volley. When prosecutors played the video of the officer fleeing gunfire in court, he became choked up and paused his testimony for a moment, his lip trembling.

As the officers fled, Allen encouraged them to keep running until they could hunker down behind their vehicles. When Allen realized Jordon appeared to be shot and bleeding, he acted quickly to get him to a medic.

“Did you use colorful language?” asked Assistant State’s Attorney Zarena Sita.

“I said ‘get in the f–ing car, Barry,’” he replied, to laughter in the courtroom.

Body camera footage showed Jordan climbing into the back of Allen’s vehicle before they sped to a staging area at a nearby church where an ambulance was waiting.

Linthicum’s public defenders have argued that the police acted recklessly when they approached someone they believed was armed and experiencing a mental health crisis who had locked himself inside a bedroom.

During cross-examination, one of Linthicum’s attorneys, Deborah Katz Levi, asked Allen if he would have walked into a room with a person armed with a “long gun” like Linthicum’s AR-15 in a hypothetical domestic conflict between Levi and her husband.

“If he’s holding the gun in his possession, no,” Allen said.

In a body-camera video recorded on the street outside the Powers Avenue home, Burton described what happened in the basement to another officer who had arrived later.

“It’s like we agitated the situation,” she told him.

Asked about the comment by Deputy State’s Attorney John Cox on redirect, Burton said she meant that Linthicum didn’t want police there. Even with the benefit of hindsight, she said she wouldn’t have done anything differently on the call.

“We were there to help,” she said. “And he didn’t want that help.”