PLAINFIELD, Ind. — Bret Zimmerman said he was working outside the Maple Grove Trailer Park along US 40 in Plainfield Friday afternoon, ”and I heard an engine accelerate from forty to sixty miles per hour very quickly.”
What Zimmerman heard was the engine of a Plainfield Police SUV speeding up just a couple hundred feet from the intersection of East Main Street and Smith Road.
”Within a half a second there was an explosion and there was car parts in the air over the top of the telephone poles,” said Zimmerman.
The police vehicle slammed into a 2009 Ford Fusion crossing the intersection containing Bennie Williams, 80, and Barbara Williams, 78, of Clayton.
Both were killed.
The officer suffered minor injuries.
“Did you hear a siren?” I asked Zimmerman.
“No,” he said.
“Did you see any flashing lights?”
“No,” said Zimmerman. “I heard no brake lights. I heard nothing but an explosion.”
“Has anybody ever come and talked to you about what you saw and heard?” I asked.
“Nobody but you,” he answered.
Avon police are conducting the crash investigation.
It’ll be up to Plainfield Police to determine if their officer was following the department’s pursuit policy.
It was at about 5:30 p.m. when a dispatcher radioed an officer to answer a complaint phoned in from a restaurant less than a mile from the crash scene at US 40 and Clarks Creek Road.
”Report of a person unconscious possibly at Long John Silver’s. They’re gonna be in a white vehicle back by the dumpster. Caller is an employee. Says there are three persons acting strangely. One person seems to be in and out.”
When the officer arrived, he encountered what was quite possibly a car stolen from an eastside Indianapolis used car dealership in May but an altercation broke out and the officer radioed back, “Someone bit me!”
Within seconds the officer reported, “Black female got out of the car at Long John Silver’s. Vehicle took off southbound on Clark Creek.”
That began the pursuit eastbound on Main Street.
”Passing Smith, coming up on Perry,” the officer reported after less than a mile in the chase, and then…
”Control: 10-50. 10-50. 16 been hit. He’s at Smith and Main,” another officer radioed before reporting on the vehicle containing the elderly couple. “Control: they’re both unconscious right now.”
The officer was treated for minor injuries. He is on administrative leave during the investigation.
The Plainfield Police Pursuit Policy reads, “It is the policy of this department to weigh the importance of apprehending suspects who unlawfully flee from law enforcement against the risks associated with vehicle pursuits,“ including, “The seriousness of the known or reasonably suspected crime.”
The Plainfield officer may not have had time to determine whether the 2022 Kia he was investigating in the restaurant parking lot was reported stolen, and, an assault on an officer would constitute a felony committed during the act of fleeing and resisting arrest.
Indiana police departments typically instruct their officers to pursue fleeing suspects if there is a danger of injury or death.
The officer’s SUV would be equipped with electronics that would have determined the vehicle’s speed and operation in the seconds leading up to the crash and the activation of its lights and sirens.
The suspect vehicle was recovered Friday night but Avon police report the driver, a white male, 6’1’’, 240 pounds, is still unaccounted for.
Witness Bret Zimmerman wonders if there was another way to track down the suspect without the resulting loss of life.
”You have cameras plus officers also have radios,” he said. “There was no reason for a high speed pursuit in this area.”