At 11:15 a.m. Wednesday, officers from the Bloomington Police Department responded to the Fourth Street and Dunn area in response to multiple 911 calls saying they had seen two women running and yelling that they were being chased by a man with a knife.
The callers said the man had last been seen near Sample Gates. Once they arrived at Sample Gates, a bystander flagged down an officer and was able to point out the suspect.
The suspect, later identified as Karsten Harshbarger, had traveled east through Sample Gates and was walking on an IU campus path. Officers approached Harshbarger as he reached an entryway to the Indiana Memorial Union and climbed up onto a ledge, where he sat down.
The officer told Harshbarger to come down from the ledge and took him into custody without incident at 11:23 a.m. The arresting officer found a knife where Harshbarger was sitting along with suspected drugs during a search incident to arrest.
According to Cornell Law School, an incident to arrest is a rule allowing warrantless searches of a person being placed under arrest by the arresting officer.
Investigators located and interviewed the two 20-year-old women who had been seen running along Fourth Street.
The victim said that she and her friend had been walking towards the IU campus when they noticed an unknown man, Harshbarger, appeared to be following them near the intersection of Fourth and Grant streets. One of the women said she turned around and saw the suspect, Harshbarger, five to ten feet behind them.
At that time, Harshbarger reportedly retrieved a folding knife from his pocket, exposed the blade and pointed it towards the victim. The two women ran away from the intersection toward campus yelling for help.
Harshbarger was transported to the Monroe County Jail and charged with intimidation while armed with a deadly weapon, a level five felony, and possession of a controlled substance, a level six felony.
