A man thought his child’s mother was inside when he banged on the front door and demanded to enter a northeast-side apartment late Thursday.
But it was the wrong address.
When this angry man kicked in the door to that wrong apartment, he paid with his life.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police said a resident was protecting himself, a woman and two small children who live with him when he fired a gun and killed the intruder.
“Everything at this point in time seems to be pointing toward a homeowner protecting his family and shooting an intruder who made forced entry into their apartment,” Capt. Harold Turner told Fox59.
Just before midnight, the intruder started pounding on the door in the 5700 block of Wiebeck Court, according to an IMPD news release.
He told the people inside he was looking for his girlfriend.
She doesn’t live here, the residents told him.
The man kicked open the door anyway, police said, and he charged toward the man inside.
“The adult male fired his gun striking the decedent multiple times while the remainder of the occupants of the apartment hid,” according to an IMPD news release.
The resident called police and turned over his gun, according to the news release. He cooperated with the investigators.
The front door and door frame were heavily damaged, consistent with being kicked open.
Police did not release the intruder’s name Friday, but they know his identity.
The intruder’s girlfriend, police said, lives in a different building in The Cottages of Fall Creek neat 56th Street and I-465.
A judge had issued his girlfriend a protective order against him. She called police twice on Sept. 2 reporting that he had tried to enter her home, but he was gone before officers arrived.
No one else was injured, even though a bullet passed through a wall into the unit next door.
Indiana law allows citizens to use deadly force if they are protecting themselves or others from death or serious injury. This is the 11th self-defense shooting in Marion County this year.