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Man takes IMPD gun, fires it, injures officer at restaurant; then officer fatally shoots him

Man shot on east side after grabbing officer’s weapon

UPDATE: At 2:46 p.m. Friday, the Marion County Coroner’s Office revealed the identity of the man who was shot by police as 37-year-old Frederick Davis.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A man on Thursday afternoon took an Indianapolis police officer’s weapon and fired it, injuring the officer, before the officer used a “secondary service weapon” to return fire, killing the man, the department says.

The man, whose identity police has not yet been publicly released, reportedly said that “you’re going to die” before disarming the officer, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department says.

The Marion County Coroner’s Office was expected to later release the man’s identity.

The officer, who was also was not publicly identified, received a graze wound.

IMPD says officers were sent to an investigation at 5:40 p.m. Thursday at the Rodeway Inn hotel at 6990 E. 21st St. That’s on the northwest corner of East 21st Street and North Shadeland Avenue.

At the hotel, one of the officers recognized the man “who had been trespassed from The Rodeway Inn,” and the officers knew the man also “had been trespassed from several area businesses,” a news release from IMPD said.

Officers told the man to leave the hotel property, and he ran from them on foot.

Police were searching for the man when a Burger King employee contacted them and said the man was in the restaurant at 2055 N. Shadeland Ave. That’s the address of a small commercial building with two restaurants, Burger King and Jimmy John’s, near the southeast corner of East 21st Street and North Shadeland Avenue.

Officers in uniform entered the Burger King and found the man near the restrooms.

The news release said, “Two officers approached and were attempting to take the suspect into custody, when a physical altercation followed. The officers and suspect fell to the ground during the physical altercation. At some point, the suspect was able to gain control of the officer’s firearm, said to the officer ‘you’re going to die,’ and disarmed him. The suspect fired the weapon, striking the officer. The physical altercation continued, and that officer reached for his secondary service weapon. The officer discharged his secondary service weapon, striking the suspect at least once.”

The man fled the Burger King, and officers later apprehended him in the parking lot. The man was given medical care before medics took him to Eskenazi Hospital, where he later died.

Burger King employee Ashley Lawrence told News 8’s Adam Pinsker that she saw the whole incident. “They proceeded to try and grab him, and he wasn’t willing, and they started tussling in the hall a little bit, and the guy said, ‘Ya’ll gonna have to kill me in this (expletive),’ basically, and next thing I know it was ‘pop, pop, pop,’ four shots, and I’m running to the back.”

Officers had activated bodycams, and the Burger King had surveillance video, IMPD says.

Thursday’s police shooting was the 14th involving IMPD in 2023, and the second since Tuesday, when a man was taken to the hospital after he was shot near East 25th Street and Park Avenue on the near north side of Indianapolis.

IMPD Assistant Chief Chris Bailey says the department will be looking at hiring a consultant to examine each police shooting to see if the agency can change how it handles them.

After police shootings, IMPD places officers who used weapons on administrative leave. Upon completion of a criminal investigation, the Use of Force Review Board has a hearing.

Anyone with information was asked to call the IMPD homicide office 317-327-3475.

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