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08-10-2009, 08:21 PM
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Police Audio From Jeffersonville Officers Shot in Motel Ambush
Two Jeffersonville, Indiana, police officers were seriously wounded on the night of Feb. 19, 2009, in what police called an ambush at a Motel 6 on Old Highway 31 East, just off Interstate 65 in Clark County. Cpl. Dan Lawhorn, 39, an 11-year veteran of the department, had gone with Patrolman Keith Broady, 32, who had about four and a half years on the job, to check a report of drug activity in one of the rooms. Lawhorn was shot in the leg, and his family later said the round struck his femoral artery. Broady was hit in the chest in a spot his body armor did not cover. Both were taken to University Hospital in Louisville, where they had surgery and were listed in serious but stable condition. A multistate search followed. Two men picked up in the hours afterward, Vincent D. Windell, 22, of New Albany, and Kyle Bieber, 19, were released the next afternoon after passing polygraph examinations. Clark County sheriff's Detective Todd Hollis said the pair cooperated with investigators and were not involved in the shootings. Police said the two had taken the motel room for Robert Datillo, 37, of Clarksville, who was wanted and could not register under his own name. Investigators identified Datillo as the gunman. He barricaded himself in a house in the Highview area of Louisville, near Fegenbush Lane, where Louisville Metro Police SWAT officers and hostage negotiators surrounded him. Datillo died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Feb. 20 after a standoff that lasted about 10 hours. A federal grand jury later indicted Windell on a charge involving the guns. Prosecutors said he bought a .45-caliber handgun and a .38-caliber revolver in December 2008 for Datillo, a convicted felon who could not legally buy them himself, and that Datillo used those weapons at the motel. Windell agreed to plead guilty to unlawful transfer of a firearm to a convicted felon under an agreement calling for no more than 37 months in prison. Bieber, who was Datillo's nephew, pleaded guilty to assisting a criminal for helping his uncle stay out of sight after the shooting, and to receiving stolen property in a separate case. He was given concurrent one-year sentences and, with credit for time served, was set for release in August 2009. Lawhorn and Broady both recovered and were back at work later that year. The recording is police radio traffic from the night of the shooting, running about seven minutes. It covers the emergency broadcast from the motel and the response that followed, with dispatchers and units on the air as help was sent and the scene was locked down. It is a logging tape, the continuous recording a dispatch center keeps of a radio channel, not a 911 line.
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