Officer Shahnavaz died in hail of bullets, never unholstered firearm, court docs state

Yahoo News – Indy Star

Law enforcement responding to the fatal shooting of Elwood police officer Noah Shahnavaz found the 24-year-old officer with multiple bullet wounds inside his patrol car and 36 rifle casings lying on the road.

Authorities from the Elwood Police Department and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department went to the scene of the shooting after Shahnavaz sent out a final radio transmission shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday morning, in which he said the driver of a 2012 Buick LaCrosse he had performed a traffic stop on “had a gun.”

Shahnavaz had pulled the vehicle over near the intersection of State Road 37 and County Road 1100 North. When authorities arrived they found Shahnavaz’s patrol vehicle with the emergency lights still on, according to a probable cause affidavit submitted to the Madison County Circuit Court by Indiana State Police.

Shahnavaz’s gun was unholstered, according to the affidavit. Gunfire had damaged the hood, windshield and driver’s door of the vehicle.

Responding officers attempted to perform life-saving measures on him before he was transported by helicopter to St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, where he was pronounced dead.

Police detained the shooting suspect, Carl Roy Webb Boards II, a short time after the shooting. Around 2:25 a.m. he led officers on a pursuit until police successfully deflated a tire using what’s called a “stop stick” and then used their vehicles to bring the Buick to a stop.

On his person officers found a 9mm handgun. Inside his car they found an AK-47-style rifle with a high-capacity magazine, according to a photo included in the probable cause affidavit.

An autopsy performed Aug. 1 determined Shahnavaz was killed by two gunshot wounds to the head and several gunshot wounds to the body. “Based on the severe trauma to Officer Noah Shahnavaz’s body, it is unclear of the number of times that he was shot,” the probable cause affidavit states. His death was declared a homicide.

In their follow-up investigation Indiana State Police officials found that Boards called his parents and his girlfriend through FaceTime on Sunday as he was fleeing law enforcement.

Police investigate barber shop tied to Boards

Investigators also visited a barber shop allegedly owned by Boards in Grant County where they spoke with a man who lived in an apartment above the business. The man claimed that Boards “made a recorded song making statements that if he was ever caught by police that he would kill them.”

Boards was charged Monday in Madison Circuit Court with murder, unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon and two counts of resisting law enforcement. He is being held without bond in the Hamilton County Jail.

Boards had previously been convicted of battery with a deadly weapon in 1999, and possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon in 2001.

He also was convicted of criminal recklessness, resisting law enforcement, possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon and carrying a handgun without a license in 2007 after he fired shots at Indianapolis police while they attempted to perform a traffic stop.

For that case he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, but he was released by the Indiana Department of Correction in 2019 due to state criminal code regulations at the time that allowed prisoners to get one day of credit for every day of good behavior while incarcerated.

Black Hebrew Israelites mentioned in affidavit related to Carl Roy Webb Boards II

Inside Boards’ barber shop detectives found “fliers and pamphlets” that “appeared to be consistent with the Black Hebrew Israelite philosophy,” the probable cause affidavit states. No other context was provided.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, some sects of the Black Hebrew Israelites are racist and anti-Semitic. The fatal 2019 shooting of a police detective and three people inside a kosher supermarket in New Jersey was committed by suspects who “were interested in Black Hebrew Israelite ideology,” according to the organization.

The next court hearing for Boards is set for late September.

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