Pike County sheriff's deputies shot and wounded a Chillicothe man on Wednesday afternoon, November 11, after the sheriff's office says he fired at deputies during a foot pursuit near the village of Beaver in southern Ohio, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) has now taken over the investigation of the shooting.

Source: Pike County Sheriff's Office media release, reported by Scioto Post, Nov 12, 2026

The man was identified by the sheriff's office as Anthony D. Umphries, 56, of Chillicothe. He was apprehended at the scene and flown by helicopter to Grant Medical Center in Columbus for treatment. His medical condition has not been released. No deputies were injured, according to the sheriff's office.

What the sheriff's office says happened

According to Sheriff Tracy D. Evans, the incident began at about 2:22 p.m. on Wednesday, November 11, when the Pike County Sheriff's Office received a theft complaint. The caller reported that Umphries had stolen a driver's license. Deputies went to the 1400 block of State Route 335, near Walker Ridge Road in Beaver, where Umphries was believed to be staying.

Deputies encountered Umphries there and a foot pursuit followed. The sheriff's office says that during the chase Umphries turned on the deputies and began shooting at them, and that deputies returned fire, striking him. That sequence is the sheriff's office account of the encounter; it has not yet been independently verified, and the state investigation announced on Thursday will test it against physical evidence, any video, and witness statements.

The warrants deputies were also carrying

The sheriff's office said Umphries also held active warrants out of the neighbouring Ross County Sheriff's Office, including for aggravated robbery, drug abuse and possession of drugs. Chillicothe, where Umphries lives, is the Ross County seat, about a half-hour's drive north of Beaver on the SR-335 corridor.

Public Ohio court records under the same name reach back more than two decades in Ross County. In State v. Umphries, decided by Ohio's Fourth District Court of Appeals in 2003 (2003-Ohio-599), the court affirmed an aggravated-robbery conviction arising from the October 2001 robbery of a Dairy Mart store in Chillicothe, in which the clerk testified the robber threatened to shoot her unless she opened the safe. The appeals court upheld the conviction. Those records are part of the documented background investigators and prosecutors will weigh as the new case proceeds; the charges in the current warrants remain allegations until they are heard in court.

The place: a rural stretch of SR-335

Beaver is a small village in Pike County, a rural county in Ohio's Appalachian foothills. State Route 335 is the two-lane highway that links the Pike County area north toward Chillicothe and south toward Portsmouth and the Ohio River, carrying local traffic, school buses and farm and freight vehicles through a string of small communities. A shooting and a helicopter medical evacuation on that road on a weekday afternoon is the kind of event that closes a community's main artery and draws in agencies from two counties, as happened here.

What happens next

BCI's investigation is now the central track. Its findings will go to the Pike County prosecutor for review. Umphries's condition at Grant Medical Center remains undisclosed, and any new charges arising from Wednesday's pursuit and shooting — beyond the outstanding Ross County warrants — would normally be filed once investigators complete their first round of interviews and he is medically able to appear in court. The sheriff's office has said the investigation remains ongoing and has not released the names of the deputies who fired.

For readers following police-shooting cases, the two facts to watch are the first BCI-informed account of who fired first — at present only the sheriff's office version is public — and the hospital's first condition update on Umphries. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when BCI, the prosecutor or the sheriff's office releases either.