INDIANAPOLIS -- A year to the day after he witnessed a murder at a west side AutoZone, a 20-year-old Indianapolis man was dropped off Saturday at Eskenazi Hospital – himself now a gunshot victim.
Nine days before he was shot on Saturday, a 19-year-old was the suspect in a robbery during an arranged transaction to sell an Xbox at 13th and Oxford streets. Two months earlier he was a suspect in another robbery in the 9400 block of Stouffer Court. In August 2016, he was arrested for being a child in possession of a firearm in connection with a burglary on Tacoma Avenue. Ten days before that, he was arrested in connection with a carjacking and pistol-whipping near 42nd Street and Post Road.
On Wednesday, three days before she was shot at a northwest-side KFC, a 19-year-old woman was listed as a victim in an intimidation/disturbance with a gun case at on West 26th Street. A month before that, she was the suspect in an investigation into pointing a firearm in the 400 block of North Sherman Drive.
Their stories are part of the thread linking 11 otherwise unrelated shooting victims across the city of Indianapolis over the weekend.
MORE | 11 people shot, 3 killed in violent Indianapolis weekend
Those 11 victims – three of whom had died of their injuries as of Monday evening – ranged in age from 17 to 48. They were made up of nine men and two women, all black. An RTV6 analysis of Marion County criminal records turned up all of their names in prior incidents – all as suspects, many as victims.
The shootings occurred all around the city: a west side gas station, a northeast side apartment complex, a house just a few blocks east of IMPD’s North District Headquarters. With a few exceptions, the victims were killed significant distances from their last-known addresses.
I mapped out the last-known addresses of all 11 weekend shooting victims, along with where they were shot. Green dots indicate residences, red dots shooting sites. Arrows indicate connections. pic.twitter.com/cRoFKlfv9t
— Jordan Fischer (@Jordan_RTV6) May 21, 2018
Four of the victims had previously been shot, shot at or witnessed a shooting.
Of the three men killed in shootings over the weekend – Byron Davenport Jr., 44, Deshawn McKeller, 29, and Dwayne Lipscomb, 48 – two were suspects in prior robberies or burglaries. One of them, Davenport, was listed as a suspect in three robberies since 2017 – most recently a home invasion robbery on Whittier Place in October. The other, McKeller, was arrested in connection with a theft/burglary case in January.
MAP | 2018 Indianapolis Homicide Map
Citywide, in 2017 IMPD reported 60 percent of criminal homicide victims were found to have prior criminal histories.
In the Martindale-Brightwood Neighborhood, a man with a criminal history of his own says he has a plan to help stem the city’s tide of violence.
John Grice served time in federal prison from 2012-2014. Now he works as a community advocate, using his status as an “OG” to help connect with people still in the life.
Grice and another community advocate, Anthony Beverly, say they are trying to get other OGs onboard to a city-wide contract. The rules would be simple: shooting women, kids and babies is off-limits.
“We are going directly out there to what we are calling the ‘leaders of the neighborhood’ that are behind the scene,” Grice said. “It’s time to really get the OGs involved, like myself, and get back out there and put the rules back in place.”
Grice and Beverly say they plan to take their social contract to the streets in a matter of days.
As to the most recent round of shootings, police have indicated they have suspects in several of the shootings, though neither suspect descriptions nor possible motives had been released for any of the 11 victims.
Anyone with information that could help solve any of these cases was asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 317-262-TIPS. Your call may remain anonymous.
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