Police have released body camera footage of the moment they shot and killed a man who was threatening a woman at knifepoint, moments after he tried to shoot his wife in the head at point-blank range.
Serial abuser Elijah Radford, 45, had been accused of strangling his wife Charminca Kirk just days before ambushing her outside an Indianapolis office building.
He shot her in the hand and dragged her to the ground, but she ran for cover when his gun jammed as he pulled the trigger on her head.
Radford, suspected of a 2019 hammer attack, jumped into his car and led officers on a 100mph chase through the city before being shot dead while holding a terrified woman hostage at knifepoint.
“Nonfatal strangulation is the best predictor of future domestic homicides,” said Kerry Hyatt Bennett of the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “We’re lucky she’s alive there on the Northwest Side.”
Elijah Radford was shot dead by police as he held a knife at a woman, moments after attempting to shoot his wife in the head at point-blank range.
Graphic police body camera footage shows the moment the fatal shot was heard
Two weeks earlier, a neighbor of Kirk’s needed a baseball bat to save her from Radford after he attacked her in the front yard of her home on Zionsville Road.
He was charged with domestic battery, battery causing bodily injury and strangulation after police arrived at the scene.
Marion County Court ordered him not to contact his wife, but he was waiting for her with a rifle when she left a nearby office building at 3 p.m. on June 25.
He shot her in the hand and tried to shoot her in the head, but she ran into the building when the gun jammed.
He caught up with her as she struggled to open a door now slick with blood and tried to shoot her in the head again, only to see the rifle’s magazine fall to the ground.
Officers arrived in time to see his brown Dodge Ram speed away, beginning a high-speed chase along Interstate 465 before turning onto Maple Leaf Lane eleven miles later.
Body camera video from two officers shows them approaching a home with guns raised and discovering the door had been nearly ripped off its hinges when Radford burst in.
“We need to get in there,” one officer says as screams can be heard from an upstairs bedroom and the two officers run up the stairs to find a woman with her hands up and Radford holding a knife to her throat.
“Stop, drop the knife!” an officer shouts as the kidnapper struggles with his victim.
A second later, Radford exposes his right flank and falls to the ground as a shot rings out.
The woman was unharmed but continued to scream as officers unsuccessfully motioned for her to step over the body of her attacker, who now lay motionless on the ground.
Police believe the father of three had been living at the address and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The 45-year-old man had appeared in court just two weeks earlier accused of beating his wife.
The footage shows police approaching the house where he is believed to be.
Radford’s rifle jammed when he attempted to shoot his wife twice in the head at point-blank range.
‘Elijah had a zest for life and enjoyed traveling and spending precious moments with his family,’ reads an obituary posted online.
‘His laughter and joy were contagious and he will be deeply missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing him.’
But activists have demanded to know why an outstanding arrest warrant for the 2019 hammer attack was not executed by the Marion County Court when he appeared before it two weeks earlier.
“My understanding is that he was not detained on the warrant, but there was a seven-day hold and the prosecutor asked for a bail deviation because of his history of domestic violence,” Hyatt Bennett said.
‘Therefore, if he had been arrested pursuant to that court order before this tragic incident occurred, he would have been in jail for the foreseeable future.
“We don’t want any kind of violence in our community, especially in this kind of situation. It’s tragic for everyone involved in these situations,” he added.
“There are resources available, we want people to seek them out and do the best they can to get out of certain situations.”
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