INDIANAPOLIS -- Multiple Indianapolis schools were on lockdown Monday morning after an escapee shot himself near a middle school.
Dispatchers with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said an escapee from Kentucky was in the area of Perry Meridian Middle School with a stolen vehicle around 8 a.m.
When police confronted him, he shot himself in the neck.
The incident happened near the school, but not on school property. Perry Meridian Middle School, the sixth grade academy, and the high school were placed on lockdown as a precaution. The lockdown was over by noon.
A reserve IMPD officer working at the school heard what was going on over the radio.
Police said officers saw the fugitive "manipulating" his gun and get out of the vehicle. The reserve officer fired his gun, but investigators say it was the fugitive who shot himself.
The man is still alive and was taken to a nearby hospital.
The man was later identified by ABC affiliate WHAS in Louisville as John W. Foster IV.
He walked away from a work detail in Oldham County, Kentucky on Sept. 2.
Foster is a Kentucky state inmate. He was convicted in Jan. 2014 for being a convicted felon in possession of a gun and had been sentenced to five years in prison.
Police believe the stolen car belonged to a correctional officer, with the decals removed. Indianapolis police, the U.S. Marshals and Kentucky authorities had been looking for him over the last several days.
Police believe he was in the area because he had friends nearby.
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