Undercover cocaine deal led to shooting
A police report filed this morning provided additional details of Thursday’s police-action shooting in which an undercover officer fatally shot a suspected drug dealer in a busy Wal-Mart parking lot.
According to the report, members of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department’s Metro Drug Task Force went to the lot in the 4500 block of North Lafayette Road as part of an ongoing narcotics investigation on Indianapolis’ Westside. An undercover detective had made arrangements to purchase about 11 kilograms of cocaine for $32,000 from three suspected dealers.
The dead suspect was identified today at Jose Waidestran, 27, who is also known as Jose Sanchez.
The suspects, Uriel Ortega-Torres, 22; Jose Bercanas, 27; Waidestran showed up in a Ford F-150 about 2 p.m., each armed with a handgun. They delivered about a kilogram of cocaine to the detective and informant before all three were arrested on preliminary charges of dealing cocaine, possession of cocaine and possession of cocaine with a firearm, according to the report.
In a state issued Thursday, IMPD Spokesman Paul Thompson said during the investigation, one of the suspects made a threatening move toward the officer, who fired in self defense, hitting the suspect.
Waidestran has a prior conviction for operating without having received a license and failure to stop after an accident from an August arrest. He was arrested again in February 2008 for operating a vehicle without having received a license.
After Thursday’s shooting, he was transported to Methodist Hospital, where he died about 3 p.m.of multiple gunshot wounds to the torso, according to the coroner’s report.
The shooting took place about 100 yards from the entrance of the Wal-Mart store, which is in a busy commercial area along Lafayette Road. Police tape marked off a wide area of the parking lot where the suspect’s car was parked. About 50 cars were inside the taped perimeter, and their owners had to wait several hours while police gathered evidence.
Sgt. Matthew Mount, an IMPD spokesman, said the department could not discuss the incident or release the officer’s name because it remains under grand jury investigation.
As part of department protocol, the officer has been put in an administrative position pending a hearing of the firearms review board or at the discretion of IMPD Chief Michael Spears. The incident is being investigated by the IMPD’s internal affairs and homicide divisions.
It was the second police-action shooting involving an IMPD undercover officer in two months.
On Feb. 13, authorities said, an undercover police officer shot Emilio Mitchell, 31, in the leg after Mitchell tried to run the officer over with a sport utility vehicle in the 3700 block of North High School Road.
Mitchell was later arrested in the Sept. 9 slaying of Alamarcus Barker in the 8200 block of Braeburn North Drive on the Far Eastside. Police have not released the name of the officer who shot Mitchell.
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