CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. – It all happened in a flash.
New surveillance video shows the moment a Crawfordsville, Indiana police officer confronted a man he thought was robbing a business.
The incident happened last week in Crawfordsville, when police responded to a 911 call about a robbery at Backstep Brewery on North Green Street. The caller told dispatchers that a man in a ski mask entered the bar with a gun.
Sgt. Matt Schroeter arrived at the location and saw a man in a ski mask backing out the door. He appeared to be holding a weapon. The “robber” was actually actor Jim Duff, who was filming a scene for a movie.
But Schroeter didn’t know that.
“Drop the gun! Drop the gun now!” Schroeter yells in body camera footage released after the incident. Duff then turns toward the officer and takes off his mask; Schroeter fires a shot and repeats his orders for Duff to drop his weapon.
“We’re doing a movie!” Duff says after taking off the ski mask and dropping the weapon.
The officer then orders him to get on the ground. Duff complies and then yells to someone inside the bar, “You guys better get out here, man.”
Someone starts to come out the door, but the officer tells them to stay inside.
Police said neither the production company nor the bar owners told them that a movie was being shot in the area. It didn’t help that the other actors and filming equipment were inside the business, making it difficult to know that a movie was being shot.
Duff was placed into custody until police could confirm that he was part of a movie scene.
“We could not see the police, so when the actor left the building we had no knowledge any police had even arrived at the scene,” Montgomery County Movies owner Philip Demoret told WXIN.
No charges were filed in connection with the case. Demoret said he planned to work with Crawfordsville police so that something like this doesn’t happen again.
