Iowa DCI releases name of armed driver

Press Staff Report

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation has identified the subject involved in an incident on the Avenue of Saints Wednesday evening.

Jihad Merrick, age 29, of Minneapolis, was identified as the driver killed during a standoff with officers south of Plainfield.

“An autopsy has been conducted by the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office and the results of that examination and the investigation will be forwarded to the Bremer County Attorney’s Office for review,” according to a report from Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

This incident occurred on Highway 218 southbound at the 211.5 mile marker, which is inside Bremer County.

According to the Bremer County Sheriff’s Office, the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office received a call at about 8:30 p.m. of a man with a gun pointed at his own head at Love’s Travel Stop in Floyd.

Deputies responded to the truck stop, but the man had left before they arrived, and witnesses said he had driven southbound on the Avenue of the Saints, Highway 27/218.

At 8:49 p.m., a Nashua police officer saw a vehicle traveling south on the Avenue and clocked it at 104 mph.

Bremer County Chief Deputy Robert Whitney said the Nashua officer stopped the vehicle south of the Plainfield/Highway 188 exit and saw the driver get out of the vehicle with a handgun pointed at his own head.

Officers from the Bremer County Sheriff’s Office, the Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Office, Floyd County Sheriff’s Office, Nashua Police Department and the Iowa State Patrol responded to the scene.

Officers negotiated with the driver for about 40 minutes then saw and heard a shot fired inside the vehicle.

Officers approached the vehicle and found the driver unharmed, the report said. They attempted to take him into custody but he resisted and drove his vehicle forward, striking an officer.

Two officers fired their weapons and struck the driver, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

Whitney declined to identify the officers who were involved in the shooting, or to say when that information would be available. He said the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, which is investigating the incident, will likely coordinate further release of information.

Whitney did say that the officer who was stuck by the deceased person’s vehicle was “in good spirits” Thursday morning and Whitney did not think that the officer needed medical attention after being struck and did not think that the officer was transported to a medical facility.

The southbound lane of the Avenue of the Saints was closed from the Plainfield exit south until about 4 a.m., he said.

Also responding to the scene was AMR ambulance.