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By The Associated Press
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Wednesday, December 7, 2005 11:26 AM CST
Gunmen wounded two sheriff’s deputies during separate shootings Wednesday in central Indiana, with one of the men later killing himself after a chase along Interstate 65, police said.
Neither deputy was seriously injured during the confrontations after a domestic violence call in the southern Indianapolis suburb of Greenwood and a bank robbery report on the northeast side of Indianapolis.
Police were searching for two men in connection with the Wednesday morning shooting that happened when they stopped as officers chased their car, Marion County sheriff’s Capt. Phil Burton said.
“They actually got out, fired shots and our deputies returned fire,” Burton said.
The wounded deputy was shot in the thigh and was being treated at a hospital, he said. A shot was reportedly fired during the bank robbery, but no one there was injured.
The search in the other shooting ended in Taylorsville, about 30 miles south of Indianapolis, when the gunman’s car crashed into a police squad car in a residential neighborhood about 7:30 a.m. after a chase on I-65 that topped 100 mph, Bartholomew County Sheriff Kenneth Whipker said.
David Voght, 38, then fatally shot himself, with none of the pursuing officers firing their weapons, Whipker said.
Voght shot at officers about 5 a.m. near his home in Greenwood as they responded to a domestic violence call at the residence, said Lt. Jerry Pickett of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department. One of the shots hit Johnson County Deputy Steve Edwards, who was listed in good condition at Wishard Hospital in Indianapolis from a shoulder wound.
Several bullets from the gunshots broke the windows of nearby homes in the subdivision where Voght lived.
Police spoke by cell phone with Voght, who Pickett said was a former Fort Wayne police officer and a civilian employee at Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center near Bloomington. Pickett said Voght was thought to be wearing body armor and possibly armed with a military-style rifle and a handgun and told investigators by phone that he would not be captured alive.