An Indiana State Police trooper was wounded Friday morning in a shooting that began with a stolen-vehicle report and ended with a suspect found dead in La Porte County. The violence moved fast across northwest Indiana, from a car taken in Michigan to a wooded area near Westville.
Robert Pahs said he pulled into the Speedway at 2884 U.S. Highway 421 near Michigan City as the shooting unfolded and first heard what he thought was a crinkling sound before he realized gunshots were being fired. By then, he said, the officer appeared to have hit the suspect’s vehicle.
The chain of events began around 5:30 a.m. Friday, when a suspect allegedly took a car for a test drive from a dealership in Michigan City and never returned, according to the Berrien County Sheriff's Office. The suspect then allegedly brought the car to Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo, Michigan, to steal a license plate, setting off a pursuit on I-94 that led back into Indiana. At the Speedway, the suspect in a silver Ford F150 stopped and collided with a state trooper, and the suspect shot the trooper multiple times before the trooper returned fire.
The wounded trooper was taken to Franciscan Health and later transferred to a hospital in South Bend. He was in stable condition. The suspect got away again, drove through county roads and cornfields, and was later located about five miles south in a wooded area near Westville, where additional gunshots were fired before the suspect was found dead shortly afterward from apparent gunshot wounds.
That unanswered detail matters because the account leaves open exactly what caused the suspect’s death after the search moved into the woods. Officials did say as many as 100 officers and SWAT units joined the hunt, with aviation drones and canines helping track him down. Glen Fifield said tactical teams located the suspect in the field and added that the response drew on every resource available.
Friday’s shooting was the third time an officer had been shot in the line of duty since May 22, a run of violence that has left the region’s law enforcement officers under strain. Fifield said, “So, yeah, so we're hurting... as a profession.”
