By GREGG MONTGOMERY
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
A Noblesville man has been charged with burglary and criminal confinement, and the Madison County prosecutor on Tuesday cleared the police officer who shot the domestic battery suspect of any wrongdoing.
McCreary
Dakota McCreary, 26, also faces charges of domestic battery resulting in moderate bodily injury and theft, the prosecutor says.
An officer on Friday night shot McCreary after he pointed a lighter designed to look like a handgun at police who’d been searching for him after a domestic violence report earlier in the day in Elwood.
The Madison County Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday also released police bodycams’ footage of the incident that happened about 6:30 p.m. Friday in the Madison County city of 8,400 people.
Elwood police just before 3 p.m. Friday received a domestic violence report from the 1300 block of South L Street. McCreary fled into a nearby wooded area when police arrived. Several police agencies began searching for him.
About 3-1/2 hours later, a citizen reported to Elwood Police Department seeing McCreary in the 1200 block of South J Street. Police arrived to find McCreary near the Elwood Street Department facility.
Elwood Officer Keegan Russell arrived to find McCreary holding what appeared to be a handgun. Russell radioed dispatch that the McCreary was “pointing something in his hand.”
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The county prosecutor says bodycam video showed Russell returning to the cover of his police commission and aiming his department-issued rifle at McCreary. Russell gave eight separate verbal commands for McCreary to “drop it!” and “put it down!” McCreary responded with “no!” and other expletives and yelled that officers would have to shoot him because he was “not going back to prison.”
The prosecutor says video from multiple bodycams showed McCreary continuing to advance on Russell and other officers while pointing the apparent firearm, and Russell then fired two rounds, striking McCreary at least one time. Russell gave more verbal commands for McCreary to drop the weapon.
Officers gave McCreary medical aid until medics arrived and took him to Ascension St. Vincent Mercy in Elwood, from where he was airlifted to Ascension St. Vincent Hospital Indianapolis. It was not immediately known Tuesday whether he remained hospitalized or was jailed.
Investigators later learned the apparent firearm was a lighter intended to look like a gun.
Madison County Prosecutor Officer Rodney Cummings said in a statement clearing the officer who fired his rifle, “Russell was confronted by a fleeing felon who appeared to be armed with a deadly weapon and pointed that weapon at law enforcement. Officer Russell gave eight separate verbal commands for McCreary to drop the weapon and he refused to comply with the officer’s lawful orders and continued advancing at officers while pointing the weapon. Under any reasonable application of the law to these facts, Officer Russell’s use of deadly force was justified under the law as self-defense and the defense of others.”
Online court records show an arrest warrant was issued Friday for McCreary out of Hamilton County on a felony charge of failure to return to lawful detention.
No other injuries were reported in the police shooting.