By DANA WILSON
The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Officer Brian Evans had trained for situations like this.
A man was firing shots from his house early yesterday morning, terrorizing a rural Richland County neighborhood. Evans, a 14-year veteran of the Mansfield police department and a member of the countywide SWAT team, was off-duty but raced to help.
It was his brother’s home, and Evans’ decision cost him his life.
Larry and Brian Evans had been to a movie Christmas evening with other relatives. Larry Evans had left early and his brother was worried, authorities said yesterday.
When Brian Evans arrived at the house in Weller Township northeast of Mansfield around 1 a.m., he likely was unaware of the extent of the situation, that his brother already had fired shots at two or three other people, Mansfield Police Chief Philip Messer said at a news conference yesterday.
“I believe that Brian chose to confront his brother hoping that he could intervene and help him,” Messer said.
Messer would not say what might have prompted Brian Evans’ concern.
Larry Evans’ gunfire killed his 37-year-old brother and a next-door neighbor, 44-year-old Robert L. Houseman, Richland County Sheriff J. Steve Sheldon said. Wounded were Brian Evans’ wife, Trina, and his sister, Kimberly. Neither woman’s injuries were life-threatening.
Larry Evans, 39, a guard at the Mansfield Correctional Institution, surrendered to deputies a few hours later about 200 yards from his home. The motive in the shootings is unclear, Sheldon said. “We’re trying to get all the pieces put together perfectly.”
Sheldon said his deputies responded to a series of 911 calls reporting shots fired at the Robinson Road home at 1:11 a.m. They were met with gunfire from a high-powered rifle, he said. In one call, a man said he was awakened by the sound of gunfire.
“I heard one person hollering,” the man said. “I mean, it sounded like bam, bam, bam, bam. Woke my ass up right out of bed.”
Another caller reported that her neighbor was “having a breakdown and his wife’s over here freaking out.”
When the dispatcher asked whether Larry Evans was still at the house, she replied: “He’s at the house and she (his wife) ran over here real quick. ... They’ve got to get somebody there right away.”
The shots continued on and off in the early-morning darkness with the shooter switching weapons and moving in and around the home, Sheldon said.
The order of the shootings also is unclear, the sheriff said, but it appears that the women arrived at the home first then fled before Brian Evans arrived.
Brian Evans was pronounced dead about 5 a.m. in MedCentral-Mansfield Hospital, said Paul Jones, a county coroner investigator.
Houseman died at the scene.
Houseman’s father, Robert E. Houseman, said the sheriff told him that it appeared that his son had pulled into his driveway and gotten out of his car just before he was shot. The elder Houseman suspects that his son heard the commotion and went to investigate.
Copyright 2007 The Columbus Dispatch