WOMAN THOUGH COP WAS BURGLAR

Officer Was Shot

MUNCIE - A Muncie woman accused of shooting a police SWAT team member
told investigators she thought the policeman was a burglar,
authorities said.

The woman, 29-year-old Jillian D. King, 1002 E. First St., was being
held in the Delaware County jail without bond Wednesday, preliminarily
charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery and criminal
recklessness.

Patrolman Steve Cox, 34, was hit near his groin when King fired two
shots from a .44-caliber handgun Tuesday night. He was still being
treated late Wednesday at Ball Memorial Hospital for non-life
threatening injuries, authorities said.

Police officials said Wednesday that members of the SWAT team, who
were about to conduct a drug raid at King's home around 9:30 p.m.
Tuesday, were easily identified as police officers.

When the nine-member team first approached the house, floodlights came
on. Under the police department's policy, SWAT team members are
required to announce they are police officers before breaking down a
door.

"They never had the opportunity to announce," Police Chief Joe Winkle
said Wednesday. "It's a covert action; the idea is to get in there
before they know that you are there."

According to arrest records, King, who declined to be interviewed by
The Star Press, told police that she heard a noise, looked out a
window and saw men with masks and camouflage trying to open a door, so
she went to her bedroom and grabbed a gun.

The men she saw were Cox and other SWAT team members, who were serving
a search warrant at King's home.

The search warrant was obtained about 9:30 p.m., after undercover
police officers bought cocaine from her boyfriend, Michael Cleaves, a
few hours earlier.

Winkle said the SWAT team had no reason to believe that anyone was
inside during the raid. Under MPD policy adopted about 18 months ago,
the SWAT team is called to conduct all drug-related search warrants.
Thirty-five were conducted last year.

Cox was with a group of three officers assigned the task of breaking
through the front door, which had iron bars and was locked.

When the officers tried another door, King fired two shots out of a
window, hitting Cox, who was the second person in a line of three officers.

After the shots were fired, the rest of the SWAT team stormed the
house by throwing a concrete block through a picture window.

King was found was in a bedroom holding onto her 3-year-old son.
Police said officers did not return gunfire and didn't know that Cox
had been hit until King was in custody.

"I can't speak to what she thought was going on," Winkle said. "But
the fact that the shots came so quickly ... tells us something.

"It's incredible that return shots wasn't a part of this. Not every
officer in that situation could have done that," Winkle added. "Quite
honestly we could have been planning a police funeral today instead of
[talking about] this."