As law enforcement officers surrounded David Linthicum in a tract of woods late in the evening, they were prepared to kill him if necessary.

Authorities say Linthicum, who is charged with three counts of attempted murder, shot a Baltimore County Police detective multiple times the night before — the second officer he is accused of shooting that week — and stole the detective’s truck, leading them from near his Cockeysville home to Fallston.

Detective Jonathan Chih was taken to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, where he was put on life support and underwent surgery. Three days after the Feb. 9 shooting, he was reported to be in good spirits, according to a Baltimore County spokesperson. Chih remained in the hospital as of Friday.

Officer Barry Jordan, who was injured in gunfire at Linthicum’s house Feb. 8, was treated and released the same day.

As Linthicum drove the stolen truck into Fallston, officers popped the vehicle’s tires using spike strips near a supermarket, and the 24-year-old ran into the woods. Initially believing he was armed, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team surrounded the tract, preventing his escape. Law enforcement from federal, state and local agencies, including Baltimore County Police, also arrived in Fallston.

An eight-hour standoff ensued, with officers ultimately able to take him into custody before 6 a.m. on Feb. 10. Linthicum did not have a gun in the woods, and police found a rifle in the truck, according to court documents. Linthicum is being held without bail in Baltimore County and has a preliminary hearing scheduled March 10.

With the death of Black Americans at the hands of police under intense public scrutiny, some observers wonder whether Linthicum avoided being killed after his alleged rampage because he’s white.

“We look at these things as African Americans and when police tell us, ‘Well, we didn’t have any other choice and we had no other options and we did everything that we could to prevent the loss of life,’ and then you turn around and you see the David Linthicum matter, you know that the training is there, that the expertise is there,” said J. Wyndal Gordon, a local defense attorney.

Gordon represented some family members of Korryn Gaines, a Baltimore County woman who police killed in 2016 after a standoff at her house. Gaines, armed with a shotgun, did not shoot anyone, but officers deemed her a threat and killed her, while also injuring her young son.

The officers in Gaines’ death were not prosecuted, but lawsuits against the county have resulted in millions of dollars in settlements awarded to her family.

Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told The Baltimore Sun in an interview that his officers were prepared to kill Linthicum, and would have if he had acted in a way that threatened their safety. Police are not allowed to use lethal force unless there is an imminent threat to their lives or the lives of others.

“It didn’t end fatally because the suspect didn’t put us in a decision that forced us to kill him,” Gahler said.

In virtually every police situation, the longer officers have to plot out their response, the more likely lethal force will be avoided, said Seth Stoughton, a use-of-force expert and professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law.

When police are able to coordinate resources and draw up plans they tend to feel safer, meaning they are less likely to use deadly force, said Stoughton, who was a police officer in Tallahassee, Florida.

“Time is definitely the most important tactical concept in policing,” Stoughton said.

Gahler credited his deputies’ training, and said the equipment used and the amount of time the standoff took played a significant role in why Linthicum was not killed.

“Time is to our benefit. We had him confined, he wasn’t going anywhere,” Gahler said. “There’s no urgency. … We did things slow and methodical.”

Because his deputies knew Linthicum could not escape, Gahler said, they were able to pull in resources and equipment that would increase the likelihood of the situation ending without death.

The extra time also likely allowed officers to make more dispassionate decisions, Stoughton said.

“It’s exactly that point, when you’re on the hunt for the cop killer, that you have to get it right,” he said. “There is tension there between the officers’ natural human tendency to want vengeance and the professional obligation to do the best they can to take that person safely into custody.”

Armored vehicles, helicopters, drones, sniper teams and night vision goggles were used, in addition to pepper balls, flashers and tear gas, Gahler said.

Hiding between two boulders, Linthicum was gassed and hit with pepper balls — projectiles containing pepper spray — but didn’t move the entire encounter. Linthicum was so still, Gahler said, that officers thought at one point he might have been injured in his earlier shootout and had either passed out or died.

“Whatever is up with this young man, he didn’t respond to flash bangs going off right on him, he didn’t respond when they hit him with pepper and he didn’t respond much when they tased him,” Gahler said.

Linthicum could be heard throughout the encounter asking officers to shoot him, Gahler said.

So much time passed that the sheriff’s office was able to get an armored, tracked vehicle from the Delaware State Police. Gahler said SWAT members drove the vehicle, known as a rook, through uneven, rocky terrain to where Linthicum was, and that those officers ultimately detained him after a brief struggle.

Gordon said those tactics are proof that police officers know what they’re doing, and wondered why such an approach does not seem to be used when dealing with Black people who are experiencing a mental crisis.

He said he thinks it is far less likely a Black suspect who shot at cops would have lived.

“When it’s a white suspect, you do see a level of deference that’s not afforded to Black suspects,” Gordon said.