IMPD bodycams show officers firing on man in his grandmother’s driveway

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indianapolis police on Tuesday afternoon released bodycam video and the 911 audio of an incident that led to officers to shoot the grandson of the woman who called authorities for help.

Officers were sent to a report of a suspicious car in a driveway just after 4 a.m. Dec. 31 to the 3600 block of North Oxford Street. That’s on the city’s east side, a few blocks southeast of 38th Street and Keystone Avenue.

The bodycam video was released a day after Anthony Maclin and his family members announced in a news conference at their Carmel lawyer’s office that they intent to sue the city government and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department over the incident.

Anthony Maclin, 24, said in Monday’s news conference that he fell asleep in the car outside her grandmother’s Indianapolis home after getting in late to see his family on New Year’s Eve. He said Monday he’d slept in the car because he says he didn’t want to wake up his grandmother in the middle of the night.

In the 911 call released by IMPD, the grandmother can be heard saying she could not make out the car idling in her driveway, and that she’d clicked her porch light off and on several times. “I don’t know if it’s one of my kids,” she tells the 911 dispatcher. “I don’t know. Nobody is getting out.”

IMPD says its officers arrived and confirmed with the grandmother that she didn’t recognize the car. In the video, officers with flashlights approached the red, four-door car and found Maclin asleep with a handgun in his lap. Officers found the doors to the car were locked, and the license plate was registered from Florida. Officers asked the grandmother if she had relatives in Florida, and she told them she did not, the video says.

Text in the video says, “After approximately three minutes, officers knocked on the passenger side window.”

The video shows officers shouting “police department,” and then, as Maclin awakes, repeatedly yelling, “Hands up.” Then, dozens of shots ring out.

Three IMPD officers discharged their service weapons, the text in the video says.

Next, officers are heard yelling for Maclin to get out of the car and repeatedly shout “get on the ground.”

Following their instructions, he exited the car and was detained.

The video then shows the officers rushed to get first-aid supplies and to put a tourniquet on Maclin. “You’re all right, buddy. You’re all right,” one officer says.

Paramedics arrived after the officers gave first aid.

As Maclin gets immediate medical help, his grandmother comes out of the house and tells him he should have come inside. He tells her “it’s OK” and “I didn’t want to wake you guys up.”

None of the bodycam video shows the gun in Maclin’s lap while he was in the car, IMPD says. However, IMPD has said a gun was retrieved from the car’s driver’s seat.

The officers involved in the shooting were identified as Lucas Riley, Alexander Gregory and Carl Chandler. They are on paid administrative leave, a standard practice after a police shooting. IMPD is conducting two investigations of the shooting, one by the department’s Critical Incident Response Team and the second by its internal affairs division.

Maclin is recovering in a wheelchair. His lawyer said Monday that Maclin spent 17 days in the hospital and underwent six surgeries.

The family has filed tort claims against Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett, IMPD Chief Randal Taylor, and the three officers involved “asserting civil rights claims for excessive force.” Tort claims are filed before Indiana governments and sitting officials can be sued.

News 8’s Danielle Zulkosky has reached out to Maclin’s lawyer for comment on the release of the IMPD bodycam footage.

This story was corrected to provide the names of the officers involved in the shooting, which had been released in January.

Statement

“Today IMPD released their heavily edited ‘Critical Incident Video’ of the police shooting of Anthony Maclin. In response, Attorney Steve Wagner issues the following statement on behalf of Anthony Maclin:

“The video footage released today confirms the officers had no plan whatsoever before surrounding the car with their guns drawn. Why not use other, safer methods to wake him from a distance? As a result of this lack of planning and communication, when they woke Anthony and he moved—something anyone would do when startled awake—all three officers panicked and started shouting at the same time from various positions around the car. One or more officers screamed, ‘Police’ while another officer yelled, ‘Hands! Hands!’ Rather than simply backing away and taking cover, the officers then opened fire for seven full seconds, firing dozens of rounds into the car.

“What is more significant is what is not in the video. You never hear an officer yell, ‘Drop the gun!’ When Anthony turns toward the officers and appears to raise his right arm slightly—when one officer was commanding him to raise his hands—you do not see a gun in his right hand.  You certainly do not see him pointing a gun at the officers. When the gun was found after the shooting, it was in the driver’s seat where it would be expected to be found if the gun remained in Anthony’s lap during the shooting—not in the passenger seat where the IMPD video implies he was reaching toward with the gun. In the moments after the shooting, not one officer mentions that Anthony pointed a gun at them, even when Anthony moans, ‘Why did you guys shoot?’ Likewise, after the shooting none of the officers used their police radio to report that Anthony threatened them with a gun before they opened fire. Instead, the officers’ actions right after the shooting are much more consistent with them feeling guilty because they realized they just needlessly and recklessly shot a man who was doing nothing wrong.

“The Maclin family continues to call for the following:

“· IMPD to release the unedited officer body cam footage of this incident

“· IMPD to terminate the employment of officers Chandler, Riley and Gregory

“· The Marion County Prosecutor to criminally charge all 3 officers for their criminal actions”

Stephen Wagner, partner, Wagner Reece law firm