Deputies: Highly intoxicated dump truck driver fired gunshots in Yorktown
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YORKTOWN, Ind. — Delaware County sheriff's deputies reported a Yorktown man was highly intoxicated when he fired gunshots while driving a dump truck early Sunday.
Corey Lee Bennett, 35, was arrested in a traffic stop, shortly after 1 a.m.. along Tiger Drive near Yorktown Middle School.
Dispatchers a short time earlier had received a report of several gunshots being fired from a vehicle on Priest Ford Road. A deputy in the area also reported hearing five to six shots "coming from the west."
After that deputy pulled the dump truck over, Bennett left the vehicle, "cursing and say he was not going to do what we tell him," the deputy wrote.
He was then taken into custody by a Yorktown officer. Three juvenile passengers in the dump truck were later released to the custody of their parents.
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The deputy reported a firearm and a bottle of vodka were found inside the vehicle. Bennett reportedly claimed he had stopped on Priest Ford Road, got out of the truck and fired about 10 gunshots into a "random tree."
A breath test measured the Yorktown man's blood-alcohol content at 0.276. In Indiana, motorists with a BAC of 0.08 or higher are considered intoxicated.
Bennett — who reportedly said he had consumed about a pint of an alcoholic beverage — refused to submit to a blood test at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital, prompting deputies to obtain a warrant for the blood sample, signed by Delaware Circuit Court 3 Judge Linda Ralu Wolf.
He was preliminarily charged with criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon and driving while intoxicated, and was later released from the Delaware County jail after posting a bond of $22,500.
He is set to stand trial Sept. 13 in Delaware Circuit Court 3 on four charges filed last June — battery against a public safety official, intimidation, resisting law enforcement and driving while suspended.
The Yorktown man is also scheduled to stand trial Sept. 13, in the same court, on four other charges filed in June — domestic battery, resisting law enforcement, disorderly conduct and public intoxication.
In Muncie City Court, he faces four charges — battery resulting in bodily injury, invasion of privacy and two counts of intimidation — filed last July.
According to court records, Bennett was convicted of driving while intoxicated in 2019 and driving while suspended in 2021.
Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Deputies: Intoxicated dump truck driver arrested after gunshots
