An Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer was shot, a second was injured and a suspect was killed during a traffic stop and police chase Monday night.
The officer, who has been with the department a little more than a year, was shot in the “lower extremities,” IMPD Chief Troy Riggs said, and is expected to make a full recovery. He was taken to IU Health Methodist Hospital, where about a dozen IMPD squad cars could be seen around 8 p.m.
Riggs visited the hospital to speak with other police who gathered to show their support for their fellow officer.
The second officer had “very minor injuries” which didn’t appear to be the result of gunfire, Riggs said. An unidentified suspect is dead.
The incident began around 6:45 p.m. on Georgetown Road near 71st Street, where an IMPD officer saw someone he suspected of criminal conduct, Riggs said. A passenger left the car, fled and was later taken into custody.
Meanwhile, the car’s driver sped off, leading police on lengthy chase. The driver started shooting during the chase, Riggs said. Police believe he used a handgun.
An employee at a Marathon gas station at that intersection said he saw police officers repeatedly ask a man to exit the car. When the man did not, he said, police broke the car’s driver side window.
At that point, the employee said, the man fired from inside the car and sped off.
Police said the pursuit continued south on Georgetown Road. Less than a block south of the gas station, the officer was shot and injured while inside his car, police said. The officer drove off the road, down a small bank and into a residential neighborhood, coming to a stop on Oakwood Trail. The squad car had at least two bullet holes on the driver’s side, police said.
Kishna Glass, whose house backs up to Oakwood Trail, said she saw the officer leave his vehicle and sit on the ground. She approached the officer and asked him if he was OK, she said, and he responded that he was “just shot a little bit.”
Glass said the officer told her he was shot in the foot.
A second police car also was struck, police said, and came to a stop on Georgetown Road near Covered Bridge Road. Police blocked traffic on Georgetown Road between Oakwood Trail and Covered Bridge Road for at least two hours on Monday night, marking bullets with evidence tags.
The police chase ended on the east side in the 2700 block of Newton Avenue, near the intersection with Rural Street, where a gunfight erupted between the suspect and officers.
“I saw about four or five cops come running back this way,” said Jeff Tackett, 58, whose house is near the alley where the shootout occurred. “They got behind the squad cars, and all I heard was bah-bah-bah-bah-bam.”
