HOWARD — A nine-hour standoff near Howard ended Saturday morning with an officer-involved shooting.
Captain Jay Sheffer of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office said that around 9 a.m., law enforcement officials shot two men on a property on Gilchrist Road, just west of Apple Valley. The men were believed to be the same individuals who were involved in a separate shooting the night before, Sheffer said, which prompted a standoff on the property.
The status of the men who were shot Saturday was unclear at the time of publication. Sheffer told reporters they were “down” at the scene, but no additional information on their health was available. Sheffer also could not confirm the identities of the men.
Sheffer said no officers were injured during the incident.
The standoff began around 11:30 p.m. Friday. Deputies received a call from an individual who stated they had been driving on Gilchrist Road when two men fired at their vehicle from a residence. No one was injured during the attempted shooting, Sheffer said, but the caller implied the incident may have been planned.
“It wasn’t a random act,” Sheffer said during a press conference Saturday. “It was intentional.”
Deputies met the complainant to discuss the incident, then went to the scene in an attempt to make contact with the alleged shooters. At that point, Sheffer said, the men had barricaded themselves inside a residence on the property, and refused to evacuate.
Law enforcement officials then set up a perimeter around the property and began the negotiation process, Sheffer said. Other agencies, such as the Ohio State Highway Patrol, assisted deputies in the process. There were agents on the ground and in the air, searching for the suspects in cruisers and surveillance choppers.
Sheffer could not confirm which negotiation methods were used prior to the shooting, although he said in an interview beforehand that previous attempts to make contact had been unsuccessful.
The public was notified at 7:30 a.m. of the ongoing situation. Nearby residents were asked to shelter in-place, while the community at-large was asked to avoid the area. Individuals in the immediate vicinity of the property were evacuated early Saturday morning as a precautionary measure.
“Some of the weapons they may have are high-powered, so they travel long distances,” Sheffer told reporters before the incident was resolved. “We don’t want to put the residents at-risk or in harm’s way. We want to make sure they at least try and stay inside their residence, so they have some sort of protection.”
Law enforcement officials believe there were four individuals on the property during the standoff. Sheffer said two were able to be extracted safely from residences on the property – one before the officer-involved shooting, and one after.
It’s unclear who those individuals were or why they might have been on the property that night. It’s also unclear if they were taken into custody afterwards.
After hours of attempted negotiations, Sheffer said the two men suspected in the Friday night shooting emerged from a residence on the property. They were riding side-by-side vehicles. When officers attempted to stop them, Sheffer said, the shooting occurred.
It’s unclear who shot the men. Sheffer said law enforcement officials from several agencies were on the scene Saturday morning, trying to negotiate a peaceful ending to the situation. But he did not know which one (or ones) shot the suspects.
It’s also uncertain why the shooting occurred. Sheffer did not know what specifically transpired in the moments leading up to the shooting, other than officers attempted to stop the suspects. He also did not say whether or not the suspects were armed at the time of the incident.
Sheffer said the Ohio Bureau Criminal of Investigation will investigate the officer-involved shooting, as it does with all others.
“We’ll just step back and let them kind of take over,” Sheffer said.
He added that residents in the area no longer need to shelter in-place, although the community is encouraged to avoid the area while the property is secured.
Sheffer said this is the Knox County Sheriff’s Office’s first officer-involved shooting since he came aboard in 2013. It’s unclear when the agency was last involved in one.
“It’s been many, many years,” Sheffer said. “Luckily, Knox County is somewhat low on the crime side, so we haven’t had so many officer-involved shootings to my knowledge.”
This is a developing story. It will be updated as more information becomes available.
