Byron Thompson sat on his porch in rural Warren on Monday, assessing the effects of his son’s apparent suicide-by-cop with five law-enforcement officers.
Barton L. Thompson was killed in a gunbattle with Indiana State Police troopers, Grant County Sheriff’s deputies and Huntington Police officers around 5:45 a.m. in front of Byron Thompson’s home on County Road 1000 S, between County Roads 700 W and 800 W.
Byron Thompson said his son wanted to die, and the 34-year-old man had even asked him to kill him. When Byron Thompson declined, Barton Thompson found another way.
“He said, ‘You brought me into this world, take me out of it,’” Byron Thompson recalled. “I said, ‘Bart, I can’t do that, that’s against one of the Ten Commandments – thou shall not kill. I can’t do that.’ He said, ‘Well, somebody’s got to kill me.’ He didn’t have enough nerve to do it himself, but he wanted somebody else to do it.”
Instead, Byron Thompson said his son threatened to burn down his father’s home and three barns – a threat he apparently made good on midday Sunday.
As a firefighter was responding to the house fire, he reported seeing Barton Thompson leave the burning structure and enter a barn that burned as well, according to Sgt. Ron Galaviz of the Indiana State Police. At that point, the firefighter reportedly heard gunfire, and Indiana State Police were called in, Galaviz said.
The state police set up a mile-wide perimeter around the four fires and told Byron Thompson his son could not elude the authorities. The outdoorsman did, however, and made his way to his father’s home early Monday.
That’s when Barton Thompson fired shots from an adjacent cornfield in the direction of two state troopers stationed there, according to Galaviz.
The troopers called for assistance from the Grant County Sheriff’s Department and the Huntington Police Department, and when responders arrived, an extensive gunbattle ensued, Galaviz said. It was unclear which department fired the fatal shot, Galaviz said, and that information will not be available until after the Huntington County Coroner’s Office completes its autopsy of Barton Thompson and until ballistics tests are finished, Galaviz said.
Byron Thompson said that while the ending was tragic, it was perhaps better for the community.
“It’s just a sad situation,” said Byron Thompson. “It’s too bad it ended this way, but it’s better to end this way, because twice they’d taken him to jail and he got out and the same old bull. This way, he won’t cause no more trouble.”
Barton Thompson had three misdemeanor charges on his record in Huntington County. In 1991 he was arrested for speeding, and in 1994 he was jailed for illegal possession of alcohol. In December, he was arrested for battery.
Byron Thompson said his son was a methamphetamine abuser, a drug he picked up after the death of his mother three years ago.
“He didn’t handle her dying very well,” said Byron Thompson. “He turned to drugs, and that’s what got him.
“You figured it was coming; it was just a matter of time.”
