Docs: Suspect in IMPD officer’s fatal shooting thought woman in apartment ‘was trying to set him up’
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Court documents acquired Monday by News 8 lay out the events leading to the fatal shooting of Indianapolis Metropolitan Department Police Officer Breann Leath on Thursday afternoon.
The probable cause affidavit provided details to a timeline of the fatal shooting released by IMPD on Friday. As described Friday by IMPD, four officers including Leath had approached the apartment from where the 911 call was made. The disturbance involved a boyfriend and girlfriend, IMPD has said. Police said they were called to the scene about 2:46 p.m. The court documents said Leath was pronounced dead at IU Health Methodist Hospital at 3:24 p.m.
Elliahs Dorsey, 27, told police he had slept Wednesday night at an apartment in the 1800 block of Edinburge Square, located southeast of the intersection for I-70 and I-465, according to the court documents. The apartment belonged to a woman he knew. He said he shot her during his encounter Thursday with police, but IMPD has said her injuries are not believed to be life-threatening. She was not identified in the court documents.
Dorsey told police he woke up Thursday morning and smoked marijuana. He said he “has been feeling different” and believed the woman “was trying to set him up.” He heard the woman on the phone saying “you need to come get him.”
Not long after, Dorsey told police, there was knock at the door and he started firing through the door with his Kel-Tec PRL-16, a semi-automatic pistol. He said he fired at the door five times.
Court documents said the apartment was on the third floor of the building. The uninjured officers said shots came through the door, and Leath was laying on the floor after the shots were fired. One of the uninjured officers tried to “grab Officer Leath, but he couldn’t,” the court documents said. “The officers exited the building and secured the outside perimeter.”
An IMPD sergeant later arrived and coordinated a team to get Leath out of the apartment building. When the team went in, they found the woman who had been with Dorsey in the apartment on a landing in the building’s stairwell, the court documents said. She was awake and breathing and laying on her side. The team went to where Leath was laying and carried her from the building for medical assistance. They also rescued the woman who had been in the apartment, and she was taken to Methodist Hospital with gunshot wounds and immediately went into surgery.
In processing the scene, Marion County Crime Lab found eight fired rifle cartridge casings.
Dorsey later told police that the woman in the apartment had started running downstairs outside the apartment and he shot her. He said she fell and began asking for help. He said that’s when he laid down his gun next to him, put his hands up and dropped to his knees.
Police, upon rescuing Leath and the woman, said they went into the apartment — the door was open — and found Dorsey. He was taken to IMPD headquarters, where he talked with police.
Also in the court documents, the dispatcher who took the initial call said in notes added to the run that the man could possibly be mentally ill. The man and the woman also were arguing, the dispatcher noted.
No court date has been set for Dorsey. The documents say he will be charged with murder and attempted murder.
