HANCOCK COUNTY — The Indianapolis man arrested in connection with the shooting of another man Monday night in McCordsville was released from the Hancock County Jail late Wednesday afternoon.
Dewayne A. Beasley, 40, 3000 block of Stewart Road, Indianapolis, was booked into the county jail early Tuesday morning, hours after the incident. He was facing preliminary charges of criminal recklessness; possession of a handgun without a license; and battery committed with a deadly weapon.
Prosecutor Brent Eaton decided not to charge Beasley and to release him from custody because his office had not yet received further information in support of formal charges from the McCordsville Police Department, which is investigating the incident.
Officials with the prosecutor’s office had 48 hours to either charge Beasley with a crime and send him before a judge for an initial appearance or release him. Eaton made the decision to let Beasley go.
“The investigation will continue,” Eaton said. “Officials have worked very hard for the last 36 hours to get to the bottom of the shooting, and they’ll continue to do that.”
Chief Paul Casey of the McCordsville Police Department declined to comment and referred questions to the prosecutor’s office.
Casey distributed an email Tuesday morning announcing that his officers had been dispatched to a home in the 9000 block of North Port Drive in McCordsville for a call about shots fired. Officers arrived on scene late Monday and discovered that a man had been shot. The victim was transported to Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis, Casey said in the email.
The victim has not been identified, but has been reported to be in stable condition.
According to the county’s 911 information logs, a call to 911 was made at 9:37 p.m. Monday from a woman who said a man was shooting a gun in the house, where the woman, several children and a friend were located.
The report indicated that when officers from McCordsville and Fortville arrived, they found the friend suffering from a gunshot wound in the leg, above the knee.
Beasley was arrested at the scene, the report said, and was taken to the McCordsville Police Department for questioning before he was booked into the Hancock County Jail early Tuesday morning.
Prosecutors, working with the police, typically file formal charges after arrests. Those charges are backed by affidavits, sworn by the arresting officers, laying out the evidence they have found against the suspect.
Eaton said releasing Beasley doesn’t mean he or someone else still won’t face charges, Eaton said.
“Our office works with law enforcement to be fair, complete and accurate, and in this instance I’m sure the public wants us to make the correct decisions and the correct charging decisions, and to do that, we need to continue to investigate,” Eaton said.
