INDIANAPOLIS — Kara Biernat and Jack Burd were in their living room Thursday night when they heard an unusual number of sirens outside their home on Watson Road, off College Avenue on the near north side of Indianapolis.
“This is where we saw like five cops, large guns and shields,” Biernat said as she showed their front window.
The couple said they could see multiple officers on their front lawn with their guns drawn. That’s when they rushed to the basement with their two dogs.
“We lifted up this window so we could kind of listen to what was going on,” Burd said.
The couple peered through a basement window and said someone was shouting, “Don’t shoot!”
IMPD said Thursday night detectives were following up on a recent violent crime near 22nd Street and Dexter Avenue.
During the investigation, officers said they tried to make a traffic stop on a car connected to a violent crime. Police said two suspects fled in a “low-speed” pursuit. One suspect got out of the car and ran before being taken into custody.
The chase ended near 36th Street and College Avenue. The other suspect was also taken into custody. Police said no one was injured. Police would not comment further on the nature of the crime.
“I’ve never seen anything like that. There were so many cops, and I had no idea what was going on,” Biernat said.
Since Tuesday, there have been three other police chases in Indianapolis.
One chase ended in a fiery crash that left a man dead on the northwest side.
On Wednesday, another chase caused a multi-car crash that hurt four people on the northeast side.
A few hours later on Thursday morning, an alleged drunk driver led police on a vehicle and foot pursuit near I-465 on the east side.
IMPD says these pursuits can be dangerous but are sometimes necessary.
"It is critical," said Sgt. Genae Cook. "One, it's a crime. It's against the law to flee from police. Second of all, it's a danger. It presents a danger not just to the community but to themselves."
All officers have general orders on when they can or can't chase a suspect but Cook said whether or not they do pursue depends in large part on what's happening around them.
"There are so many rules we have to follow but they're also gray to the fact that, we need to monitor the weather conditions, road conditions, where we're at, passing a school zone at 3 in the morning is nowhere like passing a school zone at 3 in the afternoon, and we take all of those factors into consideration," Cook said.
For Biernat and Burd, they said they are still shaken up but are relieved the incident outside their house wasn’t any worse.
“The first thing we said was, 'That could’ve been really bad, and it wasn’t,'” Biernat said.