Police footage shows chaotic bar shooting that injured 6, leaves some questions unanswered
INDIANAPOLIS — A video released by Indianapolis police showing scenes of a shooting outside a bar that killed one person and injured five others, including an officer, sheds more light on the chaotic night but leaves some questions unanswered.
On March 24, two uniformed Indianapolis Metropolitan Police officers witnessed a disturbance that involved a man firing a gun at people outside the 11:11 Bar & Grille on East Washington Street. The officers were "working off-duty employment" at the bar, police previously said.
Video released by police on Thursday contains edited surveillance footage capturing the moments leading up to the gunshots, which erupted about 1:30 a.m. A crowd of people is seen scattering throughout the parking lot. Police identified the shooter as 37-year-old Dominique Durham.
In total, six people – four of them bystanders − were shot in the violent flurry of activity. Three of the injured were shot by Durham, police said. The police department revealed Thursday it's unknown whether the officers or Durham struck the fourth bystander.
Body camera footage provided in the video shows one of the officers on scene getting out of his marked police vehicle as the gunshots began and returned fire. The officer, Joel Cain, was struck in the right thigh. He fell to the ground, got up and took cover behind a column.
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As Cain ducked behind the pillar under the marquee of the strip mall, Officer Arturo Barron fired at Durham from the parking lot.
Durham was shot twice. and a friend took him to the Community Hospital East emergency room. He died shortly later.
In their video summary, the police department said officers recovered 13 shell casings in the parking lot that they later traced to Durham’s gun.
The four injured adults, ages 33 to 45, survived.
Cain, the injured officer, was taken to a hospital and was released later that day.
Days after the shooting, state alcohol regulators revoked the bar’s liquor license, leaving it inoperable. Board members during a meeting about the decision cited the early stages of a state excise police investigation indicating the “incident originated inside the premises, continued into the parking lot and resulted in one dead and five injured, including a law enforcement officer."
The shooting remains under investigation by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department’s Critical Incident Response Team. The police department’s Internal Affairs Unit is conducting a separate investigation to determine whether the officers involved followed policy.
Contact reporter Sarah Nelson at sarah.nelson@indystar.com
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Police share footage of Washington Street bar shooting that injured 6
