Merit board considers firing officers who shot, killed unarmed man
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A merit board is trying to decide whether the officers who shot and killed Aaron Bailey last summer should be fired. The hearings, which started Tuesday, could run for three days.
Bailey was an unarmed black man who drove off from police during a traffic stop.
IMPD Chief Bryan Roach, who recommended the officers’ termination last fall, took the witness stand Tuesday.
“Everything I read in the statements that I had, there wasn’t enough information that would lead me, who’s been a policeman for a while, to believe they needed to shoot,” Chief Roach said. “There were other things that they could do in order to get them that time and distance and in order to make a better decision.”
The city’s lawyers said Officers Michael Dinnsen and Carlton Howard did not follow their training when they killed Bailey. Dinnsen and Howard’s lawyers argued in opening statements that the officers did not violate policy because they feared for their safety.
“We believe that the evidence will be overwhelmingly clear that Dinnsen and Howard did exactly what they were sworn to do in a very tense, difficult, rapidly evolving (situation),” attorney John Kautzman said. “Where they had to decide, ‘am I going home to my loved one tonight or am I about to be shot?’”
Police said Howard had stopped Bailey for a traffic violation. According to court documents, Howard said Bailey refused to get out of the car and Bailey drove away during the stop, eventually crashing into a tree.
The officers said Bailey did not show his hands despite orders to do so and they saw Bailey turn toward the center console. Court documents said the officers believed he was reaching for a weapon. Dinnsen and Howard fired multiple rounds.
Their lawyers said Bailey was driving on a suspended infraction and acting nervous before he drove off.
IMPD deputy chief Chris Bailey (no relation to Aaron) said the officers fired 11 rounds into the back of the car without seeing Bailey’s hands.
“I believe these officers were hurried. That they panicked at the traffic stop,” Deputy Chief Bailey said. “For whatever reason, they had a fear which was unreasonable.”
Dinnsen and Howard’s lawyers argued that Chief Roach based his recommendation on the Firearms Review Board’s findings; a board the attorneys say is too influenced by Roach to decide fairly.
The merit board that gathered Tuesday is a different entity. It consists of seven people. Some are appointed by the police union, some by the mayor and some by the City-County Council.
Lawyers for both sides objected and interrupted throughout witness statements.
Deputy Chief Bailey said, based on the reports he read, the officers escalated the situation when they should have deescalated it.
Lawyers will cross-examine Chief Roach Wednesday morning.