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Jessie Leonard

Age : 36

Gender : Female

Race : White

Date : 09/24/2021

Location : 500 block Eugene Street

City : Indianapolis

County : Marion

State : Indiana

Agency : Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department

Officer(s) :Keith Shelton; Joshua Smith; Joseph Reynolds; Dylan Sheets

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during investigation following attempted traffic stop

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/24/2021, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers Keith Shelton, Joshua Smith, Joseph Reynolds and Dylan Sheets shot and killed 36-year-old Jessie Leonard on the front porch of a residence at 556 Eugene Street. All four officers fired, and Leonard was struck by seven bullets.
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The encounter began approximately an hour earlier when an IMPD officer attempted to stop a Honda Pilot in the 3800 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Street. Contemporary police statements described the initiating reason only as a traffic infraction. The officer did not pursue the Honda when its driver continued away.
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At approximately 2:30 p.m., officers located the Honda parked outside 556 Eugene Street. Police began investigating the vehicle and arranged to have it towed. Officers saw Leonard on the porch and approached to speak with her. Early IMPD reporting could not even confirm whether Leonard was the woman who had driven away from the earlier attempted traffic stop.
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The later federal civil-rights litigation produced a substantially fuller reconstruction. According to the court record and police body-camera evidence, officers approached Leonard while investigating the Honda and learned that she had a handgun at her waistband. Officers ordered her not to reach for the weapon.
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Police alleged that Leonard nevertheless reached toward the gun. Shelton, Smith, Reynolds and Sheets then opened fire. Collectively, the officers shot Leonard seven times. They subsequently provided emergency medical aid, but Leonard died at the scene.
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The critical factual issue later became more precise than the original police description. Leonard's estate disputed whether she actually pointed the handgun at police before they shot her. The officers argued that they did not have to wait for Leonard to point or fire the weapon because she had disregarded their commands and reached for a gun within immediate reach.
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Body-camera footage was central to the subsequent litigation. All four shooting officers were equipped with body cameras, allowing the federal courts to evaluate the officers' movements, Leonard's actions and the timing of the gunfire rather than relying solely on written police accounts.
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The shooting produced a significant public-records dispute. On October 27, 2021, attorney Brandon Tate submitted a records request to IMPD seeking the police reports, witness statements, Internal Affairs and homicide investigative files, training and personnel records for Shelton, Smith, Reynolds and Sheets, and body and dash-camera recordings from the day Leonard was killed. Indiana's Public Access Counselor later reviewed a complaint concerning IMPD's delay in responding to that request.
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Leonard's estate filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit on July 7, 2022. Rae-Jean Reynolds, acting as special administratrix of Leonard's estate, sued Shelton, Smith, Reynolds, Sheets, IMPD, the consolidated City of Indianapolis and Marion County under 42 U.S.C. §1983. The lawsuit alleged, among other claims, that the officers used excessive force in violation of Leonard's Fourth Amendment rights.
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The federal district court granted summary judgment to the officers, finding them entitled to qualified immunity. The estate appealed, specifically arguing that a jury should determine whether the shooting was unreasonable because there remained a factual dispute about whether Leonard actually pointed the gun at officers.
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On October 18, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the judgment for the officers. Importantly, the appellate court did not resolve the disputed evidence by declaring that Leonard pointed the gun. Instead, it concluded that even accepting the estate's position that she did not point it, the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because existing precedent did not clearly establish that shooting someone who disregarded repeated commands and reached for a firearm in those circumstances violated the Fourth Amendment.
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The later litigation therefore sharpens an important distinction obscured by simplified descriptions of the shooting: Leonard was armed, but whether she actually pointed the gun at police before four officers fired was contested by her estate and was a central issue in the federal civil-rights case.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The four officers who shot Leonard were Keith Shelton, Joshua Smith, Joseph Reynolds and Dylan Sheets. Their names were publicly released approximately one week after the shooting.
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Keith Shelton had previously fired his weapon during another major IMPD shooting only months before Leonard's death. In May 2021, Shelton was one of five IMPD officers who returned fire during a gun battle after police said a man shot Officer Ronald Sayles and fired at responding officers. Thus, Leonard's killing was at least Shelton's second shooting incident involving police gunfire during 2021.
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Shelton had also previously been named as an individual defendant in federal civil-rights litigation against Indianapolis. In Mancini v. City of Indianapolis, filed in 2016, plaintiffs sued the city and numerous IMPD personnel, including Shelton, alleging Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment violations and municipal liability. The individual officers, including Shelton, were ultimately dismissed from that litigation, while other claims against the city continued.
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Leonard's own killing subsequently placed all four officers into federal civil-rights litigation. The estate's 2022 lawsuit individually named Shelton, Smith, Reynolds and Sheets and challenged their use of deadly force. That litigation continued through the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals before the officers ultimately prevailed on qualified-immunity grounds in October 2024.
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The case also exposed a transparency problem within IMPD. The identities of the four shooters were eventually released, but obtaining the underlying investigative, Internal Affairs, training, personnel and video records became the subject of a separate Indiana public-access complaint after the department did not promptly fulfill the records request.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2021/09/24/impd-police-shoot-kill-woman-north-side-indianapolis/5864584001/
https://www.wishtv.com/news/crime-watch-8/woman-shot-and-killed-by-police-after-pointing-gun-impd-says/
https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/indianapolis-woman-fatally-shot-by-police-on-porch-of-house/531-c5cc9a11-8599-4728-98f1-62d408e72d0c
https://fox59.com/news/indianapolis-woman-killed-in-police-shooting/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kf5-wTAdJQ
https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/police-identify-officers-in-fatal-shooting-of-woman-on-porch
https://www.wfyi.org/wfyi-news/2021-09-24/officer-involved-shooting-occurs-in-indianapolis
https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/crime/impd-reports-officer-involved-shooting-no-officers-injured
https://www.in.gov/pac/files/advisory/22-FC-20.pdf
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca7/24-1363/24-1363-2024-10-18.html
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca7-24-01363/pdf/USCOURTS-ca7-24-01363-0.pdf
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/indiana/insdce/1%3A2022cv01345/201412
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/circuit-courts/ca7/24-1363
https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/crime/impd-identifies-officer-shot-officers-who-returned-fire-in-saturday-shooting
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/indiana/insdce/1%3A2016cv02048/67411