A 24-year-old Gary man was charged Sunday in the murder of a Gary police officer who was killed during a drug investigation.
Larry Darnell Dixon is accused of fatally shooting Detective Dorian Rorex, 27, on Thursday as Rorex chased him through a gangway in the 2500 block of Tyler Street.
Rorex was shot in the chest and the stomach, police said.
Rorex and Officers Jeffrey Trevino and Jack Hamady, assigned to the police department’s narcotics detail, were responding to a complaint of drug activity.
The officers, working undercover in plain clothes, saw a man who fit the description of the drug suspect.
They pulled alongside the man and identified themselves as police officers, investigators said.
When the officers got out of the car, the man ran. The officers returned to their car, and with Rorex behind the wheel, tracked him down, then got out and chased the suspect.
The man cleared a fence, and, as Rorex followed, the suspect fired several shots, emptying his semiautomatic pistol, police said.
Rorex never drew his weapon, but Trevino wounded the suspect.
Rorex, a 3 1/2-year veteran and father of a 1-year-old son, was the first Gary police officer shot in the line of duty in more than 16 years.
He was a Gary native and Marine Corps veteran of the Gulf War.
