A southern Indiana police chief said he believed an officer acted appropriately in shooting a man who twice tried hit officers with his car.
The man was taken from the shooting scene in New Albany to a Louisville, Kentucky, hospital early Saturday but information about his condition wasn’t immediately released by Indiana State Police, which is investigating the confrontation.
New Albany officers were called to a home about 1:30 a.m. about a domestic disturbance and found the man inside a running car in the driveway. The man drove the car toward an officer who was able to get out of the way, but the man tried a second time to hit the officer, who then shot the driver “in self-defense and in defense of other officers on the scene,” state police said.
After the driver was wounded, the car crashed through a chain-link fence and traveled several hundred feet before crashing into the side of a Floyd County 4-H fairgrounds building.
State police spokesman Sgt. Carey Huls said the domestic dispute and the shooting remained under investigation and no arrests were immediately made. The wounded man’s name wasn’t immediately released.
New Albany Police Chief Todd Bailey said an initial review showed “officers utilized restraint and only used force as a last resort when life was in danger.”