INDIANAPOLIS — Benjamin Ritchie has roughly two weeks to live.
He’d like some more time to work on turning his life around and doing some good nearly 25 years after ambushing and killing a Beech Grove police officer.
”That night in that backyard, me and that officer got in a shootout. Shots were fired from both of us and I ended up hitting and killing him. I own that,” Ritchie told the Indiana Parole Board during a clemency hearing at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City on Monday morning. ”I don’t blame him. He was just doing his job. I should’ve never been in a stolen car. I should have never had a gun. I should’ve just done the right thing when I got out.”
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On Sept. 29, 2000, Ritchie said he came from Columbus, Ohio, to Beech Grove to “steal the rims off dope dealers’ cars.” But, he and his partners would need a vehicle in which to hide said stolen rims, so they stole a van from outside an Emerson Avenue convenience store and stashed it in an apartment complex parking lot until the heat was off…