A video of the shootout between police and a theft suspect at the Marathon gas station in the Village on Friday has surfaced on Facebook and is now aiding police in their investigation, Delaware County Prosecutor Jeffrey Arnold said.
The video was taken by a friend of the informant who led Muncie Police Department officers to suspect Mark Christopher Bowen, according to a Facebook comment on the video post.
The video shows cars stopping in the middle of University Avenue after the suspect opens fire at police. The vehicles block the suspect and officers during the shootout, but 14 shots can be heard blasting during the first seven seconds of the video. The rest of the video shows officers running up to the scene.
Sean Reason, who posted the video on his Facebook page, said he was happy he could share the video that had 189 shares by midnight Tuesday.
"It's the freedom of information," he said. "If [the person who shot the video] wouldn't have emailed [that] to me, nobody probably would have ever seen it."
The video is taken from a car parked across the street of the gas station in the Ball State Credit Union parking lot. Bullets were later found in the parking lot on Friday.
Graham White, who was in the car when the video was taken, emailed the video to Reason but did not post it to his own Facebook. White said he didn't anticipate the impact of the video or his comment about the informant.
"Nobody expected it to end that way really," he said. "You think you're sitting somewhere about the get busted and taken to jail, and [what happened] is not what you want to happen."
Bowen was shot several times by return fire in the upper torso, but Delaware County Coroner Scott Hahn said he couldn't confirm the number of wounds because reports haven't come back yet from the autopsy.
MPD officers Brent Brown and Steve Baugh were both injured during the shootout.
Brown was hit in the shoulder. His bullet proof vest stopped the round. He was released from IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital on Friday evening, Arnold said.
Baugh was shot in the lower face. Arnold said he was released Monday morning, despite having a "projectile that is still lodged in his jaw [and] throat area."
Arnold said he couldn't answer why MPD officers chose to approach Bowen at Village Pantry in the afternoon on Friday.
"It is an ongoing investigation that we hope to have wrapped up as soon as we are able to get all of the witnesses interviewed, including police officers," he said.
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