IMPD responds with less severe means in lethal force incidents
INDIANAPOLIS — Thus far this year, Indianapolis Metro Police have recorded 16 officer-involved shooting incidents taking nine lives.
What goes unreported are the number of times when IMPD, by U.S. Supreme Court guidance, would be justified in responding with lethal force and instead effected an arrest without firing a shot.
”We’ve seen many incidents throughout the year where officers could potentially be justified in using lethal force and make the decision not to,” said IMPD Lt. Shane Foley.
”There are a lot of things officers are considering. What is the person wanted for? What level of force is he presenting? Does the person have access to any firearms or any other weapons? The number of officers that are on the scene? Threat to the public? We’re always considering what threat that any of these incidents could face not only to our officers but also to members of the public.”
Hours after IMPD was involved in its most recent fatal shooting Friday night, officers responded to a report of a man with a gun outside of a bar at 75th Street and Shadeland Avenue.
A 911 caller said Antonio Berry threatened a bartender and went to his pickup truck to retrieve a firearm.
Detectives, already in the vicinity investigating the thefts of guns from cars, responded and saw Berry waving his gun in the air.
When officers and an Indiana State trooper maneuvered their vehicles to pen Berry in, he attempted to drive away, crashing his truck into three police vehicles.
”In that incident, the officers were able to surround the vehicle and thankfully the suspect complied with officers’ instructions and that’s what ended the incident when he complied and they took him into custody without additional incident after ramming multiple police vehicles,” said Foley.
”Absolutely a truck can be considered a deadly force situation. We’ve seen earlier this year people have been killed with people using vehicles as weapons. We’ve seen earlier this year where people have used these weapons against our officers and it resulted in injury.”
On Sunday, IMPD SWAT officers responded to a pair of incidents where they feared reported armed men were threatening the lives of children.
In the 400 block of Sumner Avenue, officers watched Terrence McCray leave his house with a baby in his arms, challenging officers to kill him.
After being told McCray had a gun in the house when the distraught man came outside without the infant, SWAT officers took him down with a projectile fired from a less lethal launcher.
Just a few hours later, police located Eugene Ridley after a domestic dispute in the 4100 block of East Washington Street in a car with a firearm and four children.
”The individual had a shotgun in the vehicle. Thankfully our SWAT officers made a quick decision to use a less lethal device which helped prevent that individual from getting to the shotgun and likely prevented the potential for using lethal force,” said Foley.
”In both of these situations, members of our SWAT team had to make very quick decisions and both of those resulted in kids being safe and apprehension of the suspect without use of lethal force.”
As of mid-October, IMPD had responded to 639,000 calls for service leading to police officer shots fired in less than one-quarter of one percent of the calls.
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