The co-owner of a film company whose movie led a police officer to fire his gun at an actor in Crawfordsville says he thinks police probably acted appropriately.
Philip Demoret was also acting in the film that his company, Montgomery County Movies, was shooting at a brewery in downtown Crawfordsville.
In it, actor Jim Duff was playing the role of an armed robber. When he walked out of the brewery, he was met by officers training guns on him and ordering him to drop the air pistol he was holding.
Police body camera video shows Duff turn, apparently confused, toward officer Matt Schroeter, before Schroeter fires an errant bullet in Duff’s direction. Demoret says he’s since imagined different outcomes to that encounter.
“I’ve often thought that by all intents and purposes Jim Duff should be dead," Demoret says. "Because I felt like it was a shot to kill, but I don’t know that.”
Demoret says his company has set a meeting to write new rules about how to inform law enforcement if they plan to use weapons in future filming.
“Personally I’d like to see a police presence – I’m not sure that just calling them’s going to solve the problem. That’s just my opinion, obviously. If would have seen something like that transpiring, I’d have called 911.”
Demoret says filming on the picture, entitled "10 to Fire," has temporarily halted.