LEBANON, Ind. – The father of an Indiana man accused of killing a sheriff's deputy during a foot chase said he's more concerned about the deputy's family than his son.
Robert Baumgardt told WTHR-TV that his son, Anthony Baumgardt, quit school, left home about five years ago and got caught up in drugs and related crimes.
"He just went down the wrong road, had the attitude he don't care," Baumgardt said. "You can't help somebody that can't be helped."
He said his heart goes out to the wife and two young children of the slain deputy, Jacob Pickett, who was shot in the head Friday while chasing three men in the city of Lebanon who had fled when officers tried to arrest one of them.
"I'm hurting for everybody," Robert Baumgardt said. "What he's done don't hurt just a couple families, it's hurting the whole world."
Boone County Prosecutor Todd Meyer is expected to announce formal charges against Anthony Baumgardt during a news conference Tuesday afternoon. The 21-year-old Lebanon man, who was shot by other officers, was jailed Saturday on a preliminary murder charge after he was released from a hospital.
Court and jail records on Tuesday didn't list an attorney for Baumgardt, who also faces preliminary charges of resisting law enforcement, possession of marijuana and methamphetamine and carrying a handgun without a license.
Pickett, 34, became a Boone County deputy for nearly three years and was a police dog handler for the department.
Pickett's services begin with visitation 2-7 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home of Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, according to the sheriff's department. His funeral will begin at 11 a.m. Friday at Connection Pointe Christian Church in Brownsburg, the Indianapolis suburb where Pickett grew up and graduated from Brownsburg High School in 2002.
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