A sheriff’s deputy eventually had to go into water to arrest a man who ran after a traffic stop.
James Napier, 25, Indianapolis, was found and arrested after customers of a business told deputies they heard a person in the water. The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office had been looking for him for three hours after he ran off during a traffic stop on Monday afternoon. He was arrested on two charges of resisting law enforcement, a count of driving while suspended and three warrants from Marion and Johnson counties.
A deputy first tried stopped the vehicle Napier was driving about 2 p.m. Monday near State Road 37 and Smith Valley Road because the information from the paper license plate did not match the vehicle, according to a sheriff’s office report.
The vehicle wouldn’t stop and continued along State Road 37 before turning onto County Road 144. When the vehicle came to a dead end on a nearby residential street, the driver got out and ran. A police dog came to the scene but the man could not be found.
Three hours later, customers at a business near State Road 37 and County Road 144, near the Morgan County line, told police they could hear a man in a nearby body of water, and deputies found a man 20 feet from the bank. He would not get out of the water, according to the deputy’s report. After he continued about 200 yards down the waterway, a sheriff’s deputy went into the water to arrest him, the report said.
Napier was held without bond at the Johnson County jail.
