Fort Wayne police officers came under gunfire early Tuesday while serving a warrant in a residential neighborhood off Hessen Cassel Road, and the person who opened fire on them has died, according to police. The shooting unfolded around 7:20 a.m. in the 3100 block of Elmdale Drive, a quiet stretch between Paulding and Tillman roads on the city's southeast side.
According to WANE, Fort Wayne Police Department activity logs show officers first responded to the area around 6:34 a.m. to serve a warrant, nearly an hour before shots were fired. A public information officer at the scene told the station that a person started shooting at officers during that warrant service, and that the person has since died. Separately, WRTV reported that medics provided aid to the suspect and that the person's condition was unknown at the time of its report, a detail that differs from WANE's later account of the person's death.
21Alive, citing police dispatch information, reported that officers were actually dispatched to the 3100 block of Elmdale Drive around 7:15 a.m., a timestamp that lines up closely with when the shooting itself is believed to have occurred. Fort Wayne police have not said what led up to the shooting beyond the account that the person fired at officers during the warrant, and they have not said whether any officers were hurt. Investigators told WRTV that more information would be released as it becomes available.
No Threat to the Public, Police Say
FWPD said there is no threat to the public in connection with the shooting, even as the investigation continued on Elmdale Drive. Indiana State Police was also at the scene Tuesday morning, the same report from WANE noted, though further details about that agency's role were not provided. WRTV's reporting places the shooting location in a residential area east of State Road 27, a quiet corner of the southeast side not typically associated with police activity of this scale.
A Recent Officer-Involved Shooting
Tuesday's shooting comes roughly three weeks after another Fort Wayne police shooting on Chadwick Drive, on the city's south side. In that incident, officers were dispatched to a home in the 6800 block of Chadwick Drive around 5:45 p.m. after a report of a person experiencing a mental-health crisis, according to 21Alive. Police said in that case that a man grabbed a large knife, an officer tased him, and officers then fired their handguns when he continued toward them; the man was reported to be in life-threatening condition at a hospital, and the two officers who fired were placed on five days of administrative leave under standard protocol.
Fort Wayne police described the Chadwick Drive shooting as the department's second officer-involved shooting of the year.
It remains unclear whether Tuesday's shooting on Elmdale Drive is connected to any mental-health response, and the department has not characterized it that way. Officers went to serve a warrant and ended up in a gunfight that left one person dead, according to police. Fort Wayne police say they will release additional details on the Elmdale Drive case as the investigation continues.
