Posted: 12/7/2005 3:36:14 PM EDT
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Indiana Deputy Wounded Chasing Bank Robbers CHRIS PROFFITT Courtesy of WTHR News Indianapolis, Dec. 7 - Police say that three men entered the Flagstar Bank at 5610 E. 71st Street around 10 a.m. Wednesday flashing pistols and demanding money, at one point firing at an employee who wasn't wounded. Grabbing a black money bag, the men sped off with two Marion County deputies chasing them to 74th Street and Allisonville Road. There, shots were exchanged. "They fired at two of our deputies who returned fire," says Marion County Sheriff's Captain Phil Burton. The shooters have been identified as 22-year-old Ronnie Williams and his brother, 18-year-old Ryan Williams. Six-year sheriff department veteran Deputy Gary Schuller was shot in the thigh. The third suspect, identified as the getaway driver, is 24-year-old Jerry Gray. He was caught at the scene of the shootout. The Williams brothers fled into neighborhoods, prompting several schools to go on lockdown with residents warned to stay in their homes while SWAT searched door-to-door. "We did get some 911 calls, which assisted us in setting up our perimeter," said Burton. Ronnie Williams was located in 7422 Glenmora Ridge in the attic, alone with a gun. He gave up without resistance. Ryan Williams was later located in 7414 Glenmora Ridge in the basement and his gun was found in the garage in some motor oil. He fought deputies in the residence and was shot with a taser. Police say luckily, the homeowners weren't there. "Our SWAT team entered the homes that had forced entry. They searched and made apprehensions inside both." Schuller, 44, is a six-year veteran of the Marion County Sheriff's Department. He was treated and released from Methodist Hospital. The bullet went into his thigh and shattered the bone. |
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Dangerous duty: 2 deputies shot All officers feel the wound, experts say Officers downplay such incidents as part of the job, but police academy instructors, public safety experts and officers who have survived gunshots agree the fallout can be profound, both for the victims and for their peers in uniform. The Northeastside shooting comes against a backdrop of rising armed robbery rates in Marion County. "It seems now, more than ever, that criminals are more willing to challenge authority," said Vince Huber, president of the local police union. He spent much of the day at Methodist Hospital, where Schuller was being treated. Schuller and Edwards are among at least 15 metro area officers who have been shot while on duty since 2000. On Nov. 21, police say, a driver stopped on suspicion of making an illegal turn shot Indianapolis Police Department officer Michael Antonelli in the face on the city's Eastside. Antonelli lost his right eye. The spike in violence seems to be happening across the country. "There seem to be a lot more weapons on the street these days, and people are responding more violently than they used to," said Mary Ann Viverette, chief of police in Gaithersburg, Md., and president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Hidden toll Every year, about 150 law enforcement officers are killed in the United States, according to the association. The shooting of an officer can affect every person on duty, one expert said, sparking a bunker mentality that isn't good for the community officers serve. "You are more cautious; that part is certainly understandable and fine," said DeVere Woods, an associate professor of criminology at Indiana State University. "But you are less open, less receptive and more suspicious." As much as officers may try to keep the news from affecting them, Woods said, a shooting puts everyone on edge. "They are human beings, and it's going to influence them." Woods spent 26 years as a deputy sheriff in Michigan. In his view, word of an officer being hurt makes some reluctant to take extra risks. Officers who might pause a moment to gauge a situation before opening fire might be less likely to wait. "There is a legal line when it is permissible to shoot, and the moral line," Woods said. "When there is a shooting like this, I think those lines start to get closer together for a while." Officers shot in the line of duty in metropolitan Indianapolis seemed to be a fairly rare occurrence from 2001 to 2004. Then, in August of last year, IPD Officer Timothy "Jake" Laird was killed and four officers were wounded by a Southside man who went on a shooting spree. Butler University Police Officer James L. Davis Jr. was killed a few weeks later after a man refused to leave Hinkle Fieldhouse and managed to wrestle the officer's gun from him. Societal trends ranging from increases in divorce to a shift toward community-based mental health programs can put police officers in volatile situations. The 18 percent increase in armed robberies this year in Marion County is another factor. More than a dozen officers in several departments said they didn't want to discuss how they felt after Wednesday's shootings. Fishers Patrolman Tom Weger, however, took the incidents as a reminder to remain alert. "You can't afford to be complacent," said Weger, 34. "We go on hundreds of false alarms and hundreds of runs where nothing happens. But you never know when that next call will be a life-and-death situation, the call of your career." "Lucky" When IPD Patrol Officer Linda Jackson hears about officers taking bullets, she knows what they're going through. Jackson, 38, still has a bullet fragment in her left thigh: a reminder of Dec. 21, 2002, when Jackson tried to stop a fight at a pizza place. In the gunfire that followed, a ricochet hit Jackson. She might have lost her leg -- or her life. When the bullet hit, she said, it felt like a super-heated poker. Jackson stayed conscious and knew what had happened. The bullet fragment missed her femoral artery and her thighbone. She still has no feeling in the area where the bullet entered, but the wound isn't causing her problems. Anthony Keith Brown, the man convicted of shooting her, was sentenced to 126 years in prison. "When something like this happens, I do have a little bit of survivor's guilt," she said. "How did I get lucky?" She wasted little time before confronting the fears and the memories of the experience. The first run she took on her first day back in her squad car, she heard over the radio: Shots fired. Person shot. Yes, her heart pounded. "But actually, I was kind of glad," she recalled. "I got it out of the way the first run I took." Jackson points to prayer as a source of strength. "We just say our prayers every night," she said. "We pray for our families and for our law enforcement families." |