Full Notification

“I’m going to kill some cops”.
Those were the words of the armed suspect who would, minutes later, try to ambush an EPD officer who responded to a 911 call at the TGIF’s restaurant at the Eastland Mall.
According to witnesses in the restaurant, 38 year old DANIEL WOOTERS was acting aggressively and made comments about killing people. WOOTERS behavior and his threatening comments prompted the call to 911 and led to a series of events that ended with WOOTERS being shot by police.
According to multiple witnesses at TGIF’s, WOOTERS made comments that he was going to kill someone and, more specifically, that he was going to kill some cops. He left the restaurant and walked to a nearby bank parking lot. Once on the lot, he approached an unoccupied car and began looking into it. The owner of the car was on the lot and told him to get away from his car. At that time, the uniformed officer pulled onto the bank lot in a fully marked police car. The witness said WOOTERS pulled out a knife as the officer arrived and he saw him confront the officer while armed with the knife. As the officer backed away from WOOTERS, he got into the police car and drove away.
Additional officers who had responded to the area for the initial 911 call spotted the marked car as WOOTERS was driving on the mall parking lot. They attempted to pull WOOTERS over, but he fled. The chase ended in the 3300 block of E Morgan when WOOTERS lost control of the car.
WOOTERS exited the car while holding the knife in his hand. He advanced towards the officers while still armed with the knife. Three officers discharged their weapons. The suspect was shot and dropped to the ground. Several officers rendered first aid, including CPR, as medical personnel responded to the scene. The suspect was pronounced deceased at a local hospital a short time later.
The investigation is on-going. Anyone who witnessed any of the events that began at TGIF’s around 8:20pm is asked to call EPD at 812-436-7979. Several cell phone videos have been posted on social media sites. Anyone with video of any portion of the events is also asked to call EPD.
In addition to the investigation that began with the call to TGIF’s, police are investigating a “suspicious circumstances” call to the Chili’s restaurant in front of Eastland Mall earlier in the evening. That call was received at 6:41pm. Officers were called to the restaurant when a man came in and asked if he could leave his duffle bag on one side of the restaurant while he ate on the other side. An employee thought the man’s behavior was suspicious and they called 911. The man left while the employee was on the phone with a 911 operator. Responding officers were unable to locate him at that time. Police are looking into the possibility that WOOTERS was also involved the Chili’s 911 call.
No officers were injured during this incident.The three officers who discharged their weapons are on 3 days paid administrative leave, per EPD policy.