A man charged with killing an Indianapolis police officer during her response to a domestic violence call in 2020, is seeking an insanity defense in an effort to avoid the death penalty.
On Wednesday, Elliahs Dorsey’s attorneys filed a motion with a doctor’s report indicating he was mentally ill when Officer Breann Leath of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department died.
Fox News Digital reports that while acknowledging a delayed filing for an insanity defense, the attorneys attributed the delay to complications arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, 24-year-old Leath and three other officers responded to a call from an Indianapolis apartment building in April 2020. Shots were fired from inside an apartment before the officers made verbal contact, while Leath was in the apartment building’s hallway.
Officers reported “shot fired” and “officer down” and backed out of the hallway, unable to bring Leath, who’d been hit, with them, police said.
First responders found Leath in the hallway with multiple gunshot wounds after Dorsey allegedly shot through the apartment door. They rushed her to Eskenazi Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
“She heard the call and went toward that which could do her harm because she knew if she didn’t, harm may come to others,” Mayor Joe Hogsett said, following the shooting.
Dorsey was arrested for the fatal shooting and booked into Marion County Jail on murder and attempted murder charges. Another woman who was shot during the incident has been identified as the defendant’s girlfriend at the time. She survived the shooting.
A Marion County judge previously approved the option of seeking the death penalty against the defendant; the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office filed the request in 2021.
Dorsey’s trial is scheduled for September 18.
Leath, the mother of a young son, was steeped in law enforcement. Her father is a Marion County sheriff’s deputy, and her mother is an emergency dispatcher with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
“She is the example of the type of officer we want on this department,” IMPD Chief Randal Taylor said.
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[Featured image: Breann Leath/Indianapolis Metro Police Department]
