Police Brutality / Individual record
Aaron Bailey
The Washington Post's Fatal Force database records Aaron Bailey in a fatal on-duty police shooting on 2017-06-29 in Indianapolis, IN. Individual circumstances and legal outcome require case-specific review.
- Record ID
- PB-697
- Incident date
- June 29, 2017
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- Indianapolis, IN
- Agency
- Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department
- Category
- Fatal on-duty police shooting
- Age (reported)
- 45
What happened
Aaron Bailey was shot and killed by Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers on June 29, 2017, after a car pursuit that ended when his vehicle crashed. Officers approached the vehicle and fired at Bailey during the aftermath of the crash, leading to widespread scrutiny of the basis for their perceived threat. The shooting triggered a police homicide investigation, a special prosecutor's review, an Indianapolis civilian police merit-board process and a separate FBI investigation. Federal authorities reviewed the accumulated evidence for possible federal civil-rights charges. On April 12, 2019, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Indiana announced that the federal investigation had found insufficient evidence to support criminal civil-rights charges. The federal decision was a conclusion about whether prosecutors could prove a federal offense under the applicable standard, not a finding that no questions remained about the officers' tactics or use of force. Bailey's family and community advocates continued to scrutinize the case.
Investigation & findings
Individual legal and investigative outcome not yet reviewed.
Washington Post Fatal Force v2; 2015–2024
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- 2717
- Race code in source
- B
- Race source method
- not_available
- Gender (source)
- male
- Armed status (source)
- unarmed
- Flee status (source)
- car
- Agency IDs (source)
- 77
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Additional source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Fatal Force v2 — fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024The Washington Post · Dataset