Lynn Town Marshal Brad Fisher is dead. Killed this morning trying to stop a stolen vehicle from tearing through his town.
Wednesday, July 29, around 8:30 a.m. A Randolph County Sheriff’s deputy spots a van matching a stolen vehicle report near County Roads 400 West and 50 South. The deputy also recognizes the driver — Maci Atkinson, 34, of Winchester — as having multiple outstanding felony warrants.
The van pulls over. Then it doesn’t stay pulled over. Atkinson takes off, and deputies are now in a pursuit that runs across Randolph County, eventually heading east on U.S. 36 toward the town of Lynn.
Fisher gets ahead of the chase. Twenty-five-plus years on the job, and his role in that moment is simple: get stop sticks down, end the pursuit before it reaches more people. He positions at the intersection of U.S. 27 and U.S. 36 and moves to deploy the tire deflation device.
Atkinson doesn’t slow down. As the van veers toward him, Fisher tries to get clear into a ditch. He doesn’t make it. She hits him head-on.
The van doesn’t stop there. Atkinson loses control and slams into a dump truck further up the road. Both Fisher and Atkinson are transported to a hospital. Fisher dies from his injuries. Atkinson survives — she’s expected to be transported to jail once medically cleared, pending a formal charging decision from the Randolph County Prosecutor’s Office.
Indiana State Police Sergeant Scott Keegan, who’s handling the investigation, called it what it is: a close-knit community absorbing a gut punch. Fisher wasn’t a stranger walking that town. He’d spent more than three decades total in public service — over 25 years in law enforcement, plus years before that as a firefighter and EMT. His son was recently sworn in as a deputy with the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office. This is a family that serves.
Strip away the news-cycle language for a second. A deputy does his job and spots a stolen vehicle. A town marshal does his job and gets ahead of a pursuit to protect his community with a tool built to end chases without gunfire. And a woman running from warrants makes the decision to point a two-ton vehicle at a man standing in the road instead of stopping.
That’s not an accident of pursuit dynamics. That’s a choice.
Lynn Police Department and the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office are still working this. Formal charges haven’t been filed. What’s confirmed is confirmed: an officer is dead, doing exactly what he was trained and sworn to do, and the person responsible is in custody.
Rest easy, Marshal Fisher. Your town’s got the watch from here.
Lynn Police Department, Randolph County, Indiana.
