Staff Reports
A Bartholomew County man with a gunshot wound was missing for hours before Columbus Regional Hospital officials reported an individual had driven him to the hospital at about 10:50 a.m. Wednesday.
Mark A. Ward, 50, was talking and conscious at the hospital when Bartholomew County Sheriff deputies arrived at the hospital. At the time of his hospitalization, he was not believed to have a life-threatening injury, deputies said.
Deputies were in the process of locating Ward’s vehicle, a blue, two-door Honda passenger vehicle with the back window shot out. The vehicle was believed to still be in Columbus.
Bartholomew County investigators are now turning the case over to Shelby County officials, as they believe that is where the shooting incident took place.
Shelby County Sheriff Louis Koch declined to provide any specific information about the incident other than it was a domestic situation initially reported to Bartholomew County, who then reported it to Shelby County.
Koch said Shelby County investigators were sent at 5 p.m. to the area of the 11000 block of South County Road 200W in Shelby County and were in the area until just after 7 p.m. He would not provide information as to why investigators were searching for Ward, saying only that Shelby County officials did not talk to anybody Tuesday night about the incident. No further details are being released because the matter is under investigation, Koch said.
In Bartholomew County, an Everbridge alert was sent out by the sheriff’s department at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday asking community residents to be on the lookout for Ward, who had video chats with friends while missing, but refused to give his location to anyone.
Searchers believed Ward was in the area of Clifty Park, and Indiana State Police, Columbus police and deputies had been searching there since Tuesday night. At the time, searchers believed Ward had a .22-caliber rifle or a handgun of some type.
Police said Ward was not a suspect in any crime and was not believed to be a danger to anyone else.
However, Columbus East High School operated under “lockout” conditions for several hours Wednesday morning, which means normal classroom operations continued, but people from the outside were not being allowed in the building and the “perimeter was secured.”
Nearby Columbus Christian School also took precautions during the search.
Both those precautionary measures were lifted after Ward was found.
The status is listed as a lockout as it is a community situation and there is no threat to the building staff or students. A lockdown is a situation where there is a threat to the school building.
