Bloomington police officers confronted a naked man firing a gun Friday morning in a neighborhood north of the IU campus, and two officers shot him when he did not drop his weapon and continued to point and wave the gun at police.
Corey J. Hamersley, 21, of Bloomington, was taken to IU Health Bloomington Hospital with injuries to both legs from the shootings. No police officers or bystanders were shot.
Bloomington police Capt. Joe Qualters released a statement Friday evening saying Hamersley was still in the hospital following surgery to treat his wounds, which were described as not being life-threatening.
The young man is an Indiana University student, IU spokesman Mark Land confirmed Friday.
Police were called to the 300 block of East 15th Street at 6:53 a.m. for a report of a cursing and screaming man setting off fireworks. Police received a second call two minutes later, reporting that a naked man was firing a gun into the back of a house.
The first officer who arrived heard gunshots, and other officers then saw a man in an alley behind a house, according to Chief Mike Diekhoff, who was at the scene of the shooting.
The man, later identified as Hamersley, continued to fire shots, then moved from the alley to a sidewalk in front of the house, where he reportedly waved the gun around. Officers ordered him to stop, and when he didn’t, one officer fired four shots and one shot struck the suspect, who fell to the ground, Diekhoff said.
The suspect sat back up and raised his gun again, as police ordered him to drop the weapon. A second officer fired another shot that hit him.
The identities of the police officers involved in the shooting have not been released. Diekhoff said the two officers who shot Hamersley are on administrative leave until Bloomington police can complete an internal investigation of the shooting.
Margaret Greischar was in her home, eating cereal, when she and her husband heard what they thought were fireworks.
She called police to report that a guy “not quite right” was shooting off fireworks from her backyard. David Greischar went to his front porch to check on the sounds.
It was then that he encountered Hamersley, who was wearing only a hat and shoes — and holding a gun.
The young man said to him, “‘Which window would you like, sir?’” David Greischar recalled. “At least he was polite about it.” The Greischars said the young man then ran toward the back of their house and up an alley, and tried to push open the back door to get inside.
Margaret Greischar said after she shut and locked the back door, the young man “just started firing all over... firing in all directions.”
The couple called police again and eventually took cover behind an oak desk.
Both of the Greischars’ cars — a blue Toyota Corolla and a Toyota Camry — were hit by bullets. The windshield of the Corolla was shattered.
A neighbor’s purple Toyota Scion also had a bullet hole in its passenger side door. Detectives also checked the front bumper and under the hood of an Oldsmobile Aurora for possible damage.
Margaret Greischar used a flashlight to inspect items in her house for damage, and brought some out to her backyard to show police. She found a bullet hole in a Chinese take-out menu, she told investigators, calling out to them from her back door.
Across the street from the scene of the shooting, several Terra Trace Apartment residents lounged on their balconies and patios in their pajamas, watching the scene unfold.
Indiana University student Jason Heap, 23, said he heard the man yelling from his balcony. A friend yelled at him to be quiet, and he responded with obscenities, Heap said.
Next thing he knew, Heap said, he saw the man “off and running” waving a silver handgun in the air. “No clothes, whatsoever,” he said. “Just a gun.”
The man screamed, “man down,” “soldier down” and “give me back my 9” when he was encountered by police, Heap said.
Detectives, officers and evidence technicians searched for shell casings and bullet holes while photographing the yard. They recovered multiple shell casings from a 9mm handgun fired by the suspect before police arrived, Qualters said.
IU senior Nicole Stone, 23, captured part of the incident with the camera in her cellphone.
Like others in the neighborhood, she awoke to what she thought was the sound of fireworks. Stone said she thought about calling police to complain, but it sounded as though the pops were moving farther away from the bedroom window of her Terra Trace apartment.
Then the yelling started. Stone opened her window to get a better sense of what was going on outside, or to give a yell herself for someone to be quiet.
That’s when she saw the gunman, wearing only a hat and waving a gun.
“I definitely saw him shoot in the air once he got in the street. He was just staying in the spot where he was, shooting every once in a while,” she said. “He was, like, yelling crazy things, ‘I’ve been drinking 40s’ and ‘soldier down.’” As police approached, she said he screamed, “Don’t taze me.”
Once it clicked that the man wasn’t shooting fireworks, but a gun, Stone grabbed for her cellphone: “I think I was just captivated by what was going on.”
Stone said she first thought of the naked gunman as more of a ridiculous spectacle, and did not immediately think his actions were malicious. “I guess there was something about him ... (he seemed as if he could be) really drunk or on some sort of drugs ... so I thought I’d take a picture of him.”
She said she wasn’t scared until she saw him get shot.
Stone said Hamersley lives down the hall from her, in building C of Terra Trace apartments, but she doesn’t know him personally.
Herald Times: Bloomington police shoot, wound man after he shoots up neighborhood
