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Fate T. Stewart
By JIM BARBIERI
Bluffton Police didn’t assume a 3:28 a.m. Sunday automatic alarm from Scott’s Supermarket at the city’s south end to be an accidental tripping or malfunction as a considerable number of alarm alerts fortunately turn out to be.
Because of this diligence and follow-up, a break-in and prospective burglary haul at Scott’s were interrupted and in a wave of police action spanning two counties over ensuing hours, three Fort Wayne male subjects were jailed, two in Wells County and one in Adams County.
Two of the suspects actually were taken into custody in Adams County and one in Bluffton near the Scott’s scene.
Two police cars in Adams County were said damaged in the whirl of events, but no one was injured.
And the man captured near the break-in scene in Bluffton was “tased” three times (hit by Taser stun gun deployments three times) by Bluffton Patrolman Andy Ellis, who then added a fourth “tasing” by direct contact without a cartridge to complete subduing that suspect.
The three Fort Wayne subjects were identified as:
-- Fate T. Stewart, 30, who is charged with Class C Felony burglary and Class A Misdemeanor resisting law enforcement and lodged in the Wells County Jail with no bond set as of Sunday. He was the subject apprehended in the field behind Scott’s by Officer Ellis and “tased” for subduing.
-- Robert F. Lyons Jr., 38, who allegedly was confronted by Officer Ellis at the Scott’s scene, with Ellis, police handgun drawn, ordering him to surrender but Lyons bolting from the scene. He was apprehended along Ind. 124 in Adams County by police in that county and brought to Wells County Jail, where he was jailed on the same Class C felony burglary and Class A misdemeanor resisting law enforcement charges as Stewart.
-- Anthony D. Allen, 46, who was nabbed in a field in Adams County and jailed in Adams on charges there of auto theft and resisting law enforcement, with Wells County charges (the same as for Stewart and Lyons) pending, Bluffton Police said.
Officer Ellis said Stewart told him in repeated statements that he was “not going back to jail” as Ellis sought to take him into custody behind Scott’s, leading to the taser deployments.
More on that taser-deploying action later in this account, but police also reported that Stewart complained of chest pain a while later as police, after holding him in a patrol car at the scene during the checking of the Scott’s store building for any more suspects, were about to transport him to jail.
Following regular procedure, they took him instead to Bluffton Regional Medical Center.
Bluffton Detective Sergeant Steve Cale, who had been on the scene very early and took charge of the investigation, accompanied Stewart to the hospital. Cale and Officer Brent Garrett, one of the original officers on the scene, were relieved there by Police Chief Tammy Schaffer and Patrolman Jason Baker, to enable Cale and Garrett to get on with the investigation.
Stewart, after hospital examination, was turned over to police for jailing.
Two vehicles -- a white Oldsmobile auto and a red truck -- have been impounded from subsequent events in the arrest, according to Detective Sgt. Cale, who noted that the episode ultimately involved units from three counties plus State Police and extended into Sunday afternoon. In fact, the investigation is continuing.
Det. Cale said no statements were given by any of the suspects, who claimed they didn’t know anything about any of the cited police-confronted events of Sunday morning.
Fort Wayne Police listed them as having had lengthy involvement with authorities, Sgt. Cale was advised.
Authorities knew of nothing missing from the Bluffton Scott store in the preliminary checking early Sunday, although further checking was aimed.
Found at the scene was a complement of what police called heavy burglary tools.
Also, wires had been cut in an apparent failed attempt to deactivate alarms, and an overhead door unit showed evidence of having been pried open, police stated.
According to Patrolman Ellis, he was at the scene withing a minute of the 3:28 a.m. Sunday alarm, and that Officer Garrett responded quickly also in his separate patrol car.
Ellis said he began checking out the back of the store, heading south from Harrison Street. The first couple of doors were okay but as he approached another, he saw that a loading dock overhead door was up about a foot with light coming from it.
Officer Ellis said he was able to see two males in dark clothes as they went around a semi at a dock and hid behind building protrusions to the south of Scott’s in the Harrison Plaza mall.
Ellis said that as he approached them, one subject took off running southward while the other was halted as Officer Ellis, with gun drawn, ordered him to stop and get on the ground.
The first to bolt off (indicated later to have been Allen) dashed southward and kept on going.
The other (identified later as Lyons) stopped on command but then took off running.
Patrolman Ellis said he had dispatched Officer Garrett earlier to check out a vehicle in the Scott’s lot. He radioed Garrett about the fleeing subjects.
Officer Garrett took after them on foot as they dashed in front of the mall stores across the south part of the mall lot and across Ind.1 to the State Farm Insurance building lot -- enough ahead of Garrett, who was shouting “stop! police!”, to climb into a white four-door Oldsmobile and head south on Ind. 1.
Meanwhile, Officer Ellis had decided to check if there were any other subjects around. He said he spotted a subject going across Plaza Street (the north-south street behind the shopping center) into the field there. Ellis said he pretended not to have seen anything and calmly walked along until alongside where the subject was crawling on his stomach through the weeds.
Patrolman Ellis said he then ran out into the field where the subject (identified later as Stewart) was on his stomach. Ellis radioed to Garrett for backup before taking physical hold of the subject, whereupon the suspect then declared he wasn’t going back to jail and repeated it.
As the suspect moved to get off the ground also, Patrolman Ellis then deployed the Taser, from which the subject went down, but was coming out of it fast, bringing a second “tasing,’’ with that also a successful hit but the man again acting quickly to rise back up.
The third tasing was only a partial hit, according to Patrolman Ellis, who said the device dislodged from the subject’s body.
As officers are trained, the Taser stun gun can be used without a cartridge by pressing it against a subject and pulling the trigger -- with the same jarring impact.
Patrolman Ellis said that upon doing this, he was able to get on top of the subject and handcuff him.
The man (Stewart) was placed in Garrett’s patrol car pending the arrival of backups.
Quickly arriving then were Patrolman Robert Morgan and Police K-9 Reno, plus Det. Sgt. Cale and Sgt. Robert Frantz.
With it still not assured that there may not be more subjects inside, additional backups also were called.
Jim Poling, the Scott manager, had been summoned at the outset and had arrived quickly also,
Police set a perimeter around the store before the search, during which Morgan and dog Reno led the entry along with Officer Garrett. No one else was found.
Also called promptly to the scene had been Patrolman Mike Miller, crime scene investigation specialist, who led in checking where trim had been pried back toward raising partially the dock overhead door. Found on the scene were a four-foot steel crowbar, an 8-pound 3-foot-long sledge hammer, a smaller sledge inside the building and a steel prybar -- the police-suspected burglary tools.
In the early stages an alert had been dispatched area-wide about a white Oldsmobile in connection with flight from an interrupted Bluffton supermarket break-in.
Picked up in radio transmission later was traffic about Adams County and Decatur Police being in pursuit of such a vehicle starting on U.S. 27 in Decatur, going south on 27 and then turning westward on Ind.124 -- the direction back toward Bluffton.
However, the pursuit soon was indicated going north -- this time on Adams County Road 200W, west of Monroe.
At some stage in the episode the white Olds was indicated to have struck a police car in Adams County in an alleged try to run the car off the road.
In that Adams 200W sector north of 124, the car was reported to have slid into a residence, with the occupants having left on foot.
Very soon however, a red pickup was spotted in the close vicinity and commands put out for the driver to stop, but with that driver bolting away instead.
This was learned to be a stolen S-10, soon found abandoned near Adams 400N and 600W in another indicated accident.
Allen was the alleged driver of that vehicle.
Adams County and Decatur Police and others helping them formed a perimeter around where the subject had been seen going into a woods.
Officer Morgan and Reno and Officer Ellis went to Adams County perimeter area to assist.
Ultimately, five K-9 units from the area were involved including Wells County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Sheriff Randy Steele and K-9 Alex.
Word came forth soon that the Monroe Town Marshal had spotted a male subject walking along Ind. 124 and took him into custody. This subject was identified as Lyons.
It was close to 5 a.m. at the 400N-600W scene and State Police had been contacted about a helicopter for the search there. A helicopter was dispatched but before it could arrive, it was summoned back because Adams County and Decatur police had seen a subject walking along a fence line and tree line. There were grass tracks indicating someone possible crawling there, and the K-9 units were called into action, with the subject, identified to be Allen, promptly apprehended then.
With Patrolman Ellis and Garrett between them able to identify Stewart and Lyons, police noted, Lyons also was taken to the Wells County Jail.
Adams County had the charges of its own on Allen and he was jailed there, at least pending the pending charges against him in Wells, Det. Sgt. Cale added.
In addition to Officers Ellis, Garrett, Cale, Morgan and Reno, Frantz, Miller, Baker and Chief Schaffer of the Bluffton Police, City Patrolman Chris Broderick also took part, as did County Deputy Steele and Alex; and Jay County Police, as well as Adams, Decatur, Monroe and State Police.
Detective Sgt Cale had special praise in the aftermath for the alert action and diligence of initial responding Officers Ellis and Garrett, particularly noting their using police skills and training to deal with a potentially volatile situation -- acting by their alertness and sound procedures to protect the citizens of Bluffton and property here in the darkness hours.
Det. Cale also lauded Bluffton and Wells County Police cooperation and that with law enforcement agencies in Adams County and others.
He noted that this was the second such major matter within months that the workings of all these agencies in the two counties (Wells and Adams) and others all served to “get the job done” and protect the public.
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