Two Indianapolis officers took gunfire responding to a disturbance call Wednesday night. Both are alive. That’s not luck — that’s a vest doing its job and training taking over when the world goes sideways in half a second.
What happened
Just before 10:30 p.m. on July 22, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department East District officers responded to a disturbance call in the 8000 block of East 37th Street. A 911 caller reported multiple people involved, with a male possibly armed with a gun.
Officers arrived and made contact with a man and a woman outside. According to IMPD, the man opened fire on officers almost immediately. Two officers were struck.
At least three officers returned fire, striking the suspect. He was transported to a local hospital in critical condition and later pronounced dead. The Marion County Coroner’s Office identified him as 21-year-old Dalys Scott Kohl Jett.
One of the wounded officers took a round to the chest. IMPD Chief Tanya Terry confirmed the officer’s vest stopped it from becoming something far worse. Both officers were transported to the hospital — one by patrol car, one by medics — and are listed in stable condition. One has since been released.
The suspect’s firearm was recovered at the scene.
The officer’s perspective
This is the piece that gets lost in every headline: officers didn’t roll up on a report of “shots fired” or “man with a gun, active shooter.” They rolled up on a disturbance call — the kind of call that happens a hundred times a night in every city in this country, usually resolved with a conversation.
That’s the trap. A disturbance call carries none of the built-in adrenaline of a robbery-in-progress or a pursuit. Officers walk into it expecting to talk somebody down, not expecting to take rounds inside the first minute of contact. IMPD says the man opened fire almost as soon as officers made contact. That’s not a standoff that escalated over time. That’s a threat that was already loaded before officers ever knocked on a door or stepped out of a car.
Under Graham v. Connor, the question isn’t what anyone knows now, after the fact, after the coroner’s report and the bodycam review and the press conference. The question is what a reasonable officer perceived in that moment, with the information available in real time. Here, the information was: gunfire, direction unknown until it hits you, two of your own already down. At least three officers returned fire. That’s not a number to be alarmed by — that’s what happens when a threat doesn’t stop being a threat the instant the first shot is fired.
What’s still unconfirmed
IMPD has not released bodycam footage yet. That’s standard — it typically comes after the Critical Incident Response Team’s initial work is further along. The department has confirmed the involved officers had active cameras running, which matters: this incident will not have to be reconstructed from memory or dashcam angles. It’ll be on video, from the officers’ own perspective, when it’s released.
The officers’ names have not been made public. Neither has a full account of what triggered the original disturbance call — that’s still developing, and any speculation here would be exactly that: speculation. We’ll update once IMPD provides more.
One detail worth noting for the record: in the initial on-scene briefing given minutes after the shooting, IMPD’s public information officer said “at least one” officer returned fire. By the time Chief Tanya Terry gave her follow-up briefing at Eskenazi Hospital, that number had been revised to “at least three.” That’s not a contradiction — it’s what happens when a department briefs the public in real time, before all the facts are in, rather than waiting days to say anything at all.
Where it stands
The shooting is being investigated by IMPD’s Critical Incident Response Team, with a separate Internal Affairs review to follow, as is standard procedure any time an officer discharges a weapon.
