IMPD IDs officer in police shooting in neighborhood off East 38th Street
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The officer who fired a fatal shot during police shooting a week ago was identified Friday.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department says Patrol Officer Mitchel Farnsley has been with the agency for eight years. He was placed on administrative leave, a standard practice for officers in police shootings.
The Marion County Coroner’s Office and IMPD have identified the man fatally shot as Leandre Krushaun Houston, 31. Houston was pursued after he fled from a car in which he was a passenger.
Detectives have learned a gun Houston had pulled from his pants’ waistband, which was found next to him after he was shot, had been reported stolen a few days prior to the police shooting, IMPD said in a Friday news release.
Detectives had specifically been looking for Demarqus Lamont Whitley, 30, as a suspect in an investigation of guns being stolen from vehicles in the Broad Ripple area. He was driving the car.
Whitley, of Indianapolis, had an active warrant for an alleged probation violation after his conviction in August. He was found guilty of theft-when property stolen is a firearm; and two counts of unlawful carrying of a handgun with a prior felony conviction; and unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle. As part of a plea agreement, Whitley had been told to report to Community Corrections, a sentencing alternative for felony offenders in lieu of incarceration.
Police found the car with Whitley and Houston shortly before 5 p.m. Nov. 17 near East 38th Street and Richardt Avenue, just west of the 38th Street overpass for I-465 on the east side. After a vehicular pursuit a few blocks into a neighborhood, police stopped the suspects’ car at the intersection of Ruskin Place and North Mitchner Avenue.
Police chased Houston south of the stopped car and over a fence behind a home before, as a IMPD news release says, at some point, Farnsley shot Houston. Houston was taken in critical condition to IU Health Methodist Hospital, where he died.
Whitley was found under a truck near where the car had been stopped, in the 7600 block of Ruskin Place. He was taken into custody without incident. He received treatment at IU Health Methodist Hospital after complaining of an eye injury.
In connection with the Nov. 17 action, Whitley now faces an additional felony charge of resisting law enforcement and two new misdemeanor charges, online records from Marion Superior Court 19 showed Friday. He was to be held without bond, court records say. However, online records for the Marion County jail did not show Whitley as an inmate on Friday afternoon.
IMPD has yet to publicly share video from police bodycams or the jail-booking photo of Whitley.
