Air Force MP Alerts Police To Labor Day Gunman

COLUMBUS, Ohio—A military police officer called police Monday about what she thought was a drunk driver. Hours later, she learned that the driver she alerted police to was involved in a police-involved shooting and SWAT stand-off. 
Before the stand-off, Arrica Elliott knew something was wrong.

She started following Jason Farnsworth on U.S. 33 at Gender Road and noticed he was driving erratically. She thought he was a drunk driver and called police.

Then, Elliott followed him, describing his vehicle to police, his license plate and location to assist.

Farnsworth later shot two police officers and then himself after leading them on a chase and stand-off at his campus-area apartment.

“He almost hit a white four-door Mercury sedan,“ Elliott said on the 911 call. “He’s swerving. He started out on U.S. 33 and almost hit four cars.“

Elliott is a military police officer in the Air Force Reserves at Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton.

She stayed behind Farnsworth until she saw police had pulled him over, even exiting the highway at Broad Street and Interstate 71 and then getting back onto the highway.

Elliott said the incident wasn’t that big of a deal for her until two hours later when she heard of the officers being shot and the stand-off.

“I was almost in a state of shock because I was calling in. I was under the assumption the guy was going to be getting possibly a DUI. To find out that it ended in another way is kind of shocking for me. That’s not what I intended to happen,“ she said.

Elliott said her father was working at The Ohio State University Medical Center at the time of the shooting and saw the police officer who had been shot arrive.

Farnsworth, 37, was found dead inside a home on 4th Street apartment following the four-hour standoff.  The coroner said Farnsworth died from a close-range firearm wound to the chest.

Police said the incident began when Farnsworth was pulled over on Interstate 71. He then fled, taking police on a brief chase.

Farnsworth bailed from his vehicle near 17th and Dora Avenues where he fired multiple shots at officers.

One police officer was shot in the face and another was struck in his bullet-proof vest.

Farnsworth barricaded himself inside his apartment and fired shots out his window during the stand-off.

SWAT officers found Farnsworth dead in the residence at about 6:45 p.m. He committed suicide apparently with his own firearm.

Both officers are expected to recover.

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