Plainfield officer injures U-Haul theft suspect in gunfire exchange
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A Plainfield Police Department officer and one of two suspects in a U-Haul theft exchanged gunfire Wednesday night, sending the suspect to a hospital.
The police shooting was the second in Indianapolis on Wednesday.
The injured man, Michael Mynatt, 38, of Indianapolis, suffered a dog bite and a gunshot wound to the lower leg. It was not immediately known if a police dog or another canine had bitten him.
No one else was injured.
The computer-aided dispatch system that serves Marion and Hendricks counties dispatched a call about the chase at 6:55 p.m. Wednesday.
Plainfield Deputy Police Chief Joe Aldridge says a Marion County Sheriff’s Office investigation initiated a police pursuit of a wanted felon in a stolen U-Haul truck. Aldridge did not know if the Marion County Sheriff’s Office was serving a warrant.
The pursuit began in Marion County and went into Hendricks County. Then it went from State Road 267 in Plainfield and onto I-70, ending when the two suspects abandoned the U-Haul on the interstate west of Holt Road.
The two suspects exited and ran from the U-Haul parked on the shoulder of I-70.
One of them, Zachary White, 31, of Indianapolis, was apprehended after a short foot pursuit. He was being held in the Marion County Jail on a preliminary charge of felony escape.
Mynatt ran from I-70 and into the Crosspoint Power & Refrigeration business at the bottom of a hill from the interstate. At the commercial refrigeration business at 4301 W. Morris St., state police say, Mynatt stole a box truck, rammed a garage door and a gate at the business, then made what Aldridge called “an aggressive turn” toward officers before crashing near Kentucky Avenue and Harding Street.
That was when the shooting happened.
The pursuit involved officers from the Plainfield police, the Marion and Hendricks counties’ sheriff’s offices, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, and Indiana State Police. State police will handle the investigation, while Plainfield police has an internal investigation for the officer who fired a weapon. That officer was put on administrative leave, Aldridge says.
The shooting came on the heels of a Plainfield police pursuit of a suspect on Aug. 30 that killed a 78-year-old woman and a 79-year-old man who appeared to not see or hear the police vehicle. Avon Police Department continues to investigate that crash.
Mynatt by Thursday afternoon had not yet been booked into the Marion County jail. Sgt. John Perrine with Indiana State Police said Thursday afternoon that did not know whether Mynatt had been hospitalized or whether he remained in a hospital.
