On the afternoon of Feb. 16, Kenneth Terrell Johnson’s call for help was answered by one of the officers he would be accused of shooting only hours later, according to court documents.
Johnson, 47, is charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with the death of Beech Grove Police Officer Brian Elliott and the nonfatal shooting of his publicly unidentified colleague before running away, causing an hours-long manhunt.
Court documents reveal that the domestic disturbance call leading to the double shooting was not Johnson’s first interaction with police on Feb. 16. A curious neighbor who’d observed the earlier visit would later be the one to find Johnson’s hiding place, leading to his apprehension.
Police visited Johnson’s apartment hours before shooting
In the days leading up to Elliott’s death, Beech Grove police got multiple calls from both Johnson and his ex-girlfriend about an ongoing dispute over a Buick.
Johnson told police he had permission to borrow the car from his ex-girlfriend beginning in September 2025. On Feb. 13, 2026, he drove the car and its title to Wisconsin, where he registered it under his own name without his ex-girlfriend’s consent, according to court documents.
When Johnson returned to Indianapolis, his ex-girlfriend reported the car as stolen. Police were unable to confirm the new Wisconsin registration and brought the car back to her, upsetting Johnson.
On Feb. 16, Johnson called police because he wanted the Buick back. Sometime between 3-3:30 p.m., a sergeant and a patrol officer went to the Beech Meadows apartment to speak with him.
The sergeant told Johnson that the dispute was a civil matter, meaning police were unable to intervene.
“As officers were leaving the apartment, Johnson made statements indicating that he was frustrated that the police could not help him,” court documents said.
At some point after officers left, Johnson’s ex-girlfriend went to the apartment to retrieve her granddaughter’s pet fish. She texted him that she’d be coming over, but didn’t get a response, she said.
Once she arrived, she was “immediately physically assaulted by Johnson,” who held her own gun to her head. He demanded $6,000 and threatened to kill her if she continued to scream, she said, according to court documents.
A neighbor who heard the woman yelling for help from Johnson’s apartment called 911. Two officers were dispatched to that call. One was the patrolman who’d joined the sergeant while responding to Johnson’s earlier call.
The other was Brian Elliott.
Officer, shot in leg, helped Elliott down stairs
When Elliott and his fellow officer stood outside of the third-story apartment’s door at 5:40 p.m. on Feb. 16, they could hear a man inside threatening to kill a woman.
Elliott announced that the police were there, and the woman yelled “help me” and “please come in,” according to court documents.
Elliott kicked the door in and was met by a barrage of gunfire. He “was immediately struck by gunfire and collapsed to the floor outside of the apartment door,” investigators wrote.
His colleague, who’d been struck in the leg, moved away from the apartment and returned fire, though the apartment’s door was quickly shut from inside. By then, the sergeant from the earlier call had arrived as backup.
Though the patrolman was suffering from a gunshot wound, he and the sergeant pulled an unresponsive Elliott down two sets of stairs and out of the apartment building’s back door.
Both Elliott and the injured officer were rushed to Eskenazi Hospital by colleagues, where Elliott was declared dead.
Neighbor found Johnson in laundry room
Johnson fled through the apartment’s balcony door immediately after the shooting, triggering the hours-long manhunt. There was a massive police presence as officers from multiple agencies searched the complex and its surroundings.
A man who’d seen police visit his upstairs neighbor’s apartment twice that day went to one of the complex’s communal laundry rooms, hoping to get a closer look at the police activity from a back window.
As he walked toward that window, he noticed Johnson in an empty space between a dryer and a wall. Johnson “looked at him and raised a finger to his lips, which (the neighbor) understood to mean, ‘be quiet.'”
The neighbor instead opened the laundry room’s door and shouted to police that Johnson was inside. As he faced away from Johnson, he later told investigators, he could hear the man moving or shuffling around.
It turned out that Johnson had exited the laundry room only to go to one in the next building. Police deployed a camera-equipped drone that captured footage of him crouching behind a door.
Once Johnson noticed the drone, investigators wrote, he stood up and put a Glock 9mm firearm inside of a washing machine. He then took it out and threw it in the trash, where it was later collected as evidence.
Police moved in and arrested Johnson at 10:19 p.m. Though he declined to answer interviewers’ questions, police wrote that as he was being driven to jail, he said, “I can’t believe I killed somebody today, bro.”
Johnson pleaded not guilty during his initial hearing Feb. 20, 2026. He will seek a public defender. No attorney was listed in online court records at the time of publication.
Ryan Murphy is the communities reporter for IndyStar. She can be reached at rhmurphy@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Court docs reveal new details about Beech Grove officer’s last call
Reporting by Ryan Murphy, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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