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Last updated on Thursday, August 1, 2013
(JOHNSON CO.) - One person was shot and killed by a Johnson County Sheriff’s deputy on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.
Officials said the incident happened at a cemetery in the 1500 block of North 800 East near the Second Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church.
Officials said they received a call of a suspicious person roaming the area with a backpack. When two officers confronted the individual, he started to give them false information.
The officers realized he was giving false information about his identity when they checked their laptops in their vehicles and his information didn't add up.
The suspect then told officers what his actual name was and that he was wanted for a warrant. When officers started to put him under arrest, the suspect started running.
Witnesses said both officers told the suspect to stop and attempted to use their tasers to stop the man, but they were not effective.
Police said the suspect brandished a firearm and pointed it at officers. It was believed that there was an exchange of gunfire and both officers did fire their weapons, Johnson County Sheriff Doug Cox said.
The officers were not hit, but the suspect, a white male, was killed.
There were several witnesses in a home nearby the cemetery that saw the incident and their information matched up with what officers told investigators.
The suspect told the woman who made the initial call that he was looking for a certain farmer. Witnesses said it appeared that the suspect stopped at the cemetery and was praying.
Cox said the identity of the suspect was not known because police were still unsure about the false information he had provided earlier about his identity.
Cox asked that anybody with loved ones buried in the cemetery to check the headstones because police found at least a few headstones that had been damaged by bullets.
The Indiana State Police will lead the investigation.
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