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Officer fired three shots at man armed with assault rifle

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By Kelli Wynn and Doug Page
Staff Writers Updated 11:44 AM Wednesday, June 30, 2010

DAYTON — It was fortunate the assault rifle pointed at a police officer was either unloaded or the gunman was unaware he was out of ammunition.

Dayton Police Chief Richard  Biehl said there was no evidence linking the Maadi assault rifle to earlier reports early Tuesday morning, June 29, of shots fired in and around the Desoto Bass Courts. After the young gunman pointed his Egyptian-made weapon at Officer Jerry Bell, the officer responded with three shots as he took cover from the high-powered weapon. The gunman dropped his weapon and fled.

“However, it’s unlikely he (the gunman) would have been carrying an unloaded assault rifle,”  Biehl said.

The suspect eluded capture, and Bell reported he did not believe his shots found their mark.

Bell was patrolling near the intersection of Tampa and Clement avenues around 2:40 a.m. after numerous reports through the night of shots fired. He spotted a young black male carrying what appeared to be a rifle. He described the man as in his late teens or early 20s, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10, 140 to 160 pounds, wearing a white T-shirt and dark-colored pants or shorts.

The man ducked between two vacant houses on Clement Avenue. Bell followed into an overgrown backyard. Looking around the corner of the house, he saw the man in the light of an alley streetlight, holding the weapon in both hands.

He identified himself as a Dayton police officer and ordered the gunman several times to drop the weapon. “The suspect squared his shoulders with mine, looking at me, and his rifle barrel pointing directly at me,” Bell wrote in his report.

Police later recovered the weapon from the backyard. The rifle’s stock had been sawed off and the serial number filed off.

Benning Place residents, who live across Clement from the shooting, said they believe the gunman was the same man they saw walking across the Desoto Bass complex with a “chopper” (machine gun) Monday evening.

Katia Knight, 31, said the man “was walking through the parking lot with kids and everything (outside).”

Some of the residents called police, who some said patrolled the area of Benning Place at least three times.

Desoto Bass is the city’s oldest and largest housing complex run by the Dayton Metropolitan Housing Authority.

“Over 98 percent of the residents living in DeSoto Bass Courts are law-abiding citizens,” said Greg Johnson, DMHA executive director. “It’s not the people who live there, it’s people that come to the property that are looking to do bad things.”

DMHA has a contract with Dayton police, who patrol the complex during the daytime hours. At least one private security guard patrols the grounds at night.

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