The Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The SWAT team member who shot and killed a gunman who was spraying a neighborhood with shots from an assault rifle says he rushed to the scene after an officer at the scene called for help.
Patrolman Peter Koe said he was in the City-County Building having his laptop computer reprogrammed about 2 a.m. Wednesday when he heard the first radio report of the rampage by 33-year-old Kenneth Anderson.
Authorities believe Anderson killed his mother before leaving her home and firing dozens of shots at approaching police officers, killing Patrolman Timothy Laird and wounding four other officers.
Koe, who was shot in leg during the confrontation, on Thursday called Anderson a “gun nut.”
“This gentleman was not stupid. He was using cover,” said Koe, a 16-year police veteran. “He was using darkness. ... He was using (effective) tactics to try to engage me.”
Koe’s high-powered rifle was out of bullets when he charged Anderson, slammed his rifle against the gunman, then killed him with his handgun, according to a preliminary police inquiry.
Police said Anderson, who had also emptied his SKS assault rifle, had reached for his own pistol at the same time.
Mayor Bart Peterson has ordered an investigation into how Anderson regained possession of his collection of handguns and rifles in March after being hospitalized earlier this year for a mental evaluation.
Police in January seized nine guns and more than 200 bullets from Anderson’s home after being called there on reports that he was behaving irrationally. When Anderson asked for his weapons to be returned it drew objections from some within the Indianapolis Police Department.
“I have a feeling this guy will be a suspect in a homicide very soon,” one officer wrote in an e-mail to the department’s legal division. “I just hope I don’t get dispatched to his house.”
Department officials said the weapons were returned to Anderson because they had no legal reason to continue holding them.
Anderson’s half brother, David Mosby of Mooresville, said Anderson was evaluated at St. Francis Hospital in January and was later diagnosed as a schizophrenic.
He had threatened to kill his family, Mosby said, and told friends he thought the police were “trying to get him.”
In recent weeks, Anderson stopped taking medicine for his schizophrenia and was telling acquaintances he feared for his safety, family and friends said. During the barrage of gunfire Anderson unleashed Wednesday, Police Chief Jerry Barker said Koe was the only officer known to have fired his weapon.
“It wasn’t until that final confrontation, basically face to face with the perpetrator, that firearms were fired by police,” Barker said.
Although the head of the police union said he was worried that officers were handicapped by the more powerful weapons Anderson had, Public Safety Director Robert Turner said that would not have mattered on Wednesday.
“We can’t just shoot -- not even a firearm, not even a pistol -- in a neighborhood where we have citizens at home asleep,” he said. “This is not about who has the bigger gun.”
The funeral for Laird, the slain patrolman, is scheduled for Monday. Two of the four wounded officers remained hospitalized Thursday. Tim Conley and Leon Essig Jr., were upgraded Thursday from fair to good condition at Methodist Hospital. They both suffered upper body gunshot wounds. Koe and Andrew Troxell, who was shot in the hand, were treated and released.