Campus police respond to car chase
A report of a car chase that ended on the edge of campus and reportedly involved shots fired came in just before 10 a.m. on Sept. 20, according to a campus-wide e-mail from University of Indianapolis Vice President for Student and Campus Affairs and Dean of Students Kory Vitangeli.
In Vitangeli’s e-mail, she said that the individuals involved were not affiliated with the university. Vitangeli also said that both the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the University of Indianapolis Police Department were investigating the incident and students would be informed if there were any developments.
According to Director of Media Relations Scott Hall, the incident involved two parties that are not linked to the campus, and the details that police have collected currently only represent one side of the story.
However, Hall said that letting the campus community know when incidents such as this occur so close to the university is important.
“The university has a legal and moral responsibility to alert the community, alert the students, staff and faculty, whenever there is a potential threat to safety,” he said. “Maybe this one could have gone either way, but the dean of students and police chief really felt like a message needed to get out.”
According to the IMPD incident report, officers were told that the chase began with both vehicles turning east onto Edgewood Avenue from Madison Avenue. The report states that both vehicles then turned north onto Keystone Avenue and finally ended up going on west on Hanna Avenue, towards campus where the pursuit ended.
According to the report, IMPD Officer Chad Pryce was working part-time for UIPD when he responded to a dispatch call of two shots fired at the intersection of Hanna and State avenues.
UIndy Chief of Police and Director of Campus Security David Selby said that some of the information in the campus-wide e-mail and the police report needed to be clarified.
“First of all, it was not a drive-by shooting. … It was unconfirmed shots fired. So what you have is two people saying someone fired shots at them, but nobody could confirm those shots were fired,” Selby said. “… I don’t think that there was a threat [to campus]. If there had been a threat to campus, we’d have done things a little bit different.”
