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Police say a woman was pulled off a Citilink bus this morning by an attacker, then shot to death. She died on the sidewalk a few feet from the bus. Hours later, police surrounded a home on Holton Avenue where police believe a suspect in her death is holed up – reportedly with a 3-year-old hostage.
Jacqueline Bouvier Hardy, 49, of Fort Wayne, is the 11th victim of homicide this year in Allen County. Shortly before 8 a.m. Wednesday, Fort Wayne Police received a flurry of 911 calls about an armed man and a shooting at the corner of Reed Street and Pettit Avenue. First responders found the woman on the sidewalk along the east side of Reed Street at the intersection and pronounced her dead.
There were many witnesses to the shooting, including other passengers on the Citilink bus. Police are interviewing all of them. Although they are still piecing together details of the shooting, investigators say witness accounts indicate Hardy was a passenger on a Citilink bus and that the killer was on this bus also. It is not clear at this time what brought on the shooting, but witnesses said the attacker pulled the woman off of the bus before shooting and killing her, and then he ran away. It is not clear at this time what the relationship was between the victim and the killer, though investigators now think that she knew him.
Police have diverted traffic around the 3000 block of Holton.
Wednesday afternoon, the Allen County Coroner's Office officially ruled her death a homicide. The cause of death was a gunshot wound or wounds.
A police dog Wednesday morning attempted to track the suspect, but that trail ended around the 4700 block of Winter Street.
The incident follows a fatal shooting at Indiana Avenue and Rudisill Boulevard early Tuesday afternoon, one of five shootings in six days that have claimed four lives in Fort Wayne.
The Fort Wayne Police Department, the Allen County Prosecutor's Office and the Allen County Coroner's Office are still investigating. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Fort Wayne Police Detective Bureau at (260) 427-1201 or Crime Stoppers at (260) 436-STOP [7867].
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