INDIANAPOLIS — A man was arrested in the Tuesday deadly shooting of a man on Indianapolis' east side, IMPD announced Wednesday morning.
Anvictor Butler, 46, was arrested on a preliminary murder charge, police said. The Marion County Prosecutor's Office will make final charging decisions in the case.
Around 9:45 a.m. on Nov. 15, IMPD officers responded to the intersection of Southeastern Avenue and East Minnesota Street, near Emerson Avenue, for a report of a person shot.
When police arrived, they found a car that had crashed into a tree in a yard down the street.
That is where police say they found a man, later identified by the Marion County Coroner's Office as 30-year-old Dustin Alan Phipps, who had been shot. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition but died from his injuries shortly after arriving at the hospital.
According to court documents, the incident started at the Marathon gas station on Southeastern Avenue. Surveillance video shows Butler getting out of a white Chevy Malibu and going inside the gas station. Then, a man can be seen getting out of a white box truck at the gas station and getting into the Chevy Malibu and trying to drive away.
Court documents say Butler ran out of the gas station and fired two shots at the driver's side door of the Chevy Malibu. That's when the Chevy Malibu exited the gas station onto Southeastern Avenue, then left the roadway and crashed into a tree.
“He flew down here through the fence and hit the tree. He was laying here for five, six minutes not breathing,” said Patrick Baker, who pulled up to his house right when the incident happened.
Before that, Baker said someone was asking a man to get out of a car, but instead, the person took off. According to Baker, that’s when shots were fired.
“One dude asked him to get out, and he wouldn’t get out. So, as he fled the scene, he shot him in the back. He shot through the door and hit him in the back,” Baker said.
When asked if the shooting stemmed from a possible carjacking, IMPD said, “That has not been determined at this time whether it was vehicle carjacking that took place. We are still not ruling that out either.”
“It’s a little too close for comfort,” Joy Newton said, with the crash happening just steps away from her front door. “It’s pretty scary. There have been car break-ins and people getting mugged at the bus stops."
Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Christopher Craighill at the IMPD Homicide Office at 317-327-3475 or by email at Christopher.Craighill@indy.gov.
Tips can also be made anonymously to Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477.
