Police: Person exchanged gunfire with officers, found dead

WEST TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) - A suspect who exchanged gunfire with officers in far western Indiana was found dead after officers entered a wooded area in an armored vehicle, state police said Saturday.

Indiana State Police, the agency that's investigating the incident, released no information Saturday on the dead person, but said the Vigo County Coroner's office would be performing an autopsy.

Vigo County sheriff's deputies who were called to the rural, wooded area near West Terre Haute about 7:30 a.m. Saturday to investigate a reported suspicious person found a vehicle with a shattered rear window.

When the deputies tried to make contact with the subject using a loudspeaker, telling the person to leave the wooded area, the subject began shooting at the deputies, who took cover and called for assistance, state police said.

After officers from several agencies arrived, they set up a perimeter as the subject continued "'to shoot randomly at the officers,'Å¥ who believed he was moving through the woods, police said.

The responding officers eventually spotted the person and yelled loudly for the subject to put down the weapon and surrender, but police said the person began shooting directly at the officers giving those commands and officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect.

The person's body was later found in the wooded area by the Terre Haute Special Response Team, which arrived at the scene a few miles east of the Illinois state line.