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The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department released body camera footage Tuesday showing an armed man fatally shot in the back by an officer as he ran from a traffic stop.
Gary Dwayne Harrell, 49, died Aug. 3 following the shooting on the city’s northeast side.
The seven-minute video released by police shows Harrell running directly away from officer Douglas Correll, who is heard saying, “Stop it! Drop it!” Within a second later, with Harrell’s back to Correll and looking away from the officer, Correll fired two shots, and Harrell was hit once.
The video showed Harrell dropping the firearm and falling onto grass. It never clearly showed Harrell pointing the gun at Correll, and narration provided on the video doesn’t indicate that he did.
A .357 revolver was retrieved from a driveway and carried five live rounds, police said in the video.
Police provided aid to Harrell until medics arrived, but he was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement released the day after the shooting that Correll was exiting his patrol vehicle when Harrell got out of his car “and began verbally engaging with the officer.”
“The driver then went back to the driver’s seat of his vehicle disregarding the officer’s verbal commands,” then ran from his vehicle with a gun in his hand, the police department’s statement said.
The shooting is under investigation by the department’s Critical Incident Response Team, and a separate internal affairs investigation has begun.
The Black Church Coalition of Indianapolis has called for an independent investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into Harrell’s death.
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