Jerry Lucas
Court hearings have been postponed a few weeks for a 74-year-old Columbus resident accused of initiating a 3½-hour standoff with the local SWAT team last Thanksgiving.
Jerry Lucas, 74, of 6560 State Road 46 West is charged with attempted murder as a Level 1 felony and battery by means of a deadly weapon as a Level 5 felony.
Although a change of plea hearing was scheduled in Bartholomew Superior Court 1 for Monday, the defense asked for and received a continuance on the hearings late last week.
The change of plea will be held during the already-scheduled pre-trial conference on April 10 at 9:30 a.m, while the jury trial is tentatively set for 8:30 a.m. April 25.
On the night of Nov. 24, a female caller told emergency dispatchers her husband was being fired upon while he and their daughter were using a golf cart to search for the family cat, according to court documents.
The father later told investigators he heard three gunshots and believed he and his daughter were being fired upon by Lucas, according to court documents.
While driving back home, the father saw Lucas at the back of his residence with a rifle in his hands, the probable cause affidavit states. The victim said he saw a muzzle flash and heard a fourth gunshot before he was hit by shrapnel, police reports state. After exclaiming he had been shot, the father told his daughter to cover herself before he yelled to his wife to call 911, according to the affidavit.
When the local SWAT team arrived, there was a lengthy standoff that ended when Lucas surrendered, investigators said.
Lucas told police he shot one to two times toward a flashlight he believed to be neighbors trespassing on his property, but his third shot was toward a tree, the affidavit states.
There was a previous incident involving Lucas and the victim that occurred in May, 2015 in which Lucas pointed a long gun at the neighbor for playing his music too loudly, police records state.
In video from the 2015 incident, Lucas is heard telling the victim, “Shoot you and your whole (expletive deleted) family. All of you. Believe that.”
