IMPD Officer Shoots And Kills Vehicle Passenger After Chase Following Minor Traffic Stop, Indianapolis Media Yawns

If a police officer is going to kill a citizen, there's no better place in America to do it than Indianapolis because the media seems to lack any intellectual curiosity to question the circumstances of the shooting. If a police officer shoots and kills you, the presumption is that you had it coming to you. And that may prove to be the case in the latest police-action shooting, but I find disturbing the lack of inquisitiveness of our local news media when these shootings occur to ascertain the most basic of facts and explanations.

The latest fatal shooting occurred near 38th Street and Keystone Avenue. We're told an IMPD officer stopped to question two men in a parked car around 6:30 p.m. yesterday in Washington Park near 34th and North Dearborn Streets. The car was reportedly parked illegal. IMPD spokesman Kendale Adams said the two men were uncooperative when the police officer began questioning them, and the car pulled away from the scene at a low rate of speed. The officer began pursuing the car, which eventually turned down an alley, crashed through two fences and ended in someone's backyard. Two other officers had joined the pursuit at this point and had their guns drawn at the scene. The driver first exits the car after being ordered out of the car by police officers with guns drawn before returning to it and attempting to put the car in reverse, allegedly heading towards the officers. One officer fired shots into the car, killing the passenger instantly. Citizen eyewitness accounts of the shooting seemed to vary regarding the events leading up to the shooting.

So were the two men armed? That question wasn't answered in any of the media reports I read. Is the vehicle a weapon? Yes, if it's being used as a deadly weapon to run down an officer. Was that the case? We only have the officers' word at this point that was the driver's intent. Was the passenger driving the vehicle? Obviously not. Why shoot the passenger instead of the driver if you were trying to stop the use of the vehicle as a deadly weapon? At the end of the day, one man is dead and another man is in police custody for what began as nothing more than an illegally parked car. Neither the dead man nor the man in police custody has been identified. The facts aren't a whole lot different from the facts a couple of months ago when Mack Long was shot and killed by a police officer after he fled on foot following a minor traffic stop. Perhaps both police shootings were justified. Who knows? As with the latest shooting, police accounts of what happened didn't necessarily jive with what witnesses saw. In Mack Long's case, initial police reports that Long had fired the first shots turned out to be completely untrue. He fired no shots, although he was supposedly armed. What we know is that nobody seems to be asking the tough questions to get basic answers to ascertain any presumptions regarding the justification of the shootings. That's disturbing.

UPDATE: Police have now identified the driver of the car as 41-year old Matthew Cole of Indianapolis. A quick check of Indiana's online criminal records does not reveal any serious prior arrests. He's identified as being homeless. He's charged with a felony for resisting law enforcement with the use of a vehicle and operating a vehicle without a license. The victim of the police shooting was 34-year old Joshua Dyer of Huntington.