Unfair.

I bag on the IMPD a lot for their ongoing public relations crisis surrounding some high-profile OWI (officering while intoxicated) cases, so it's only fair that I report that the department has another side as well.

In the wee hours of last Friday morning, on the northwest side of town, a dirtbag who had recently been released from prison where he'd been serving time on felony dope charges got into an altercation with his girlfriend. Whatever the altercation was about, this guy figured that his domestic issues could be resolved by holding his girlfriend and her baby at gunpoint in their apartment.

At some point, she got out onto the balcony and screamed for help. A neighbor called the cops. There was the sound of gunfire from inside the apartment.

IMPD officer Rod Bradway was first on the scene and apparently engaged in some shouting through the locked door with the dirtbag and, when the man's girlfriend started screaming again, Bradway kicked in the door and went through.

The dirtbag had been hiding behind the door and opened fire, catching Bradway in the side, between the front and back panels of his vest. Bradway returned fire as he fell, and apparently his covering officer killed the dirtbag, but Officer Rod Bradway died of his wounds.

But he fell forward, with a gun in his hand, doing the right thing; risking his life to save another.

There are a lot worse things to have carved on one's tombstone.
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