Man charged with murder in 2020 downtown riots found guilty of reckless homicide
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A man who turned himself in to a sheriff’s reserve deputy after a fatal shooting during the 2020 riots in downtown Indianapolis was found guilty Monday of reckless homicide, according to online court records.
Marion County prosecutors had pursued a murder charge against Tyler Newby, but the judge in Marion Superior Court 27 reduced the charge to reckless homicide. His sentencing hearing was set for 1 p.m. Nov. 10.
Officers found Dorian Murrell with an apparent gunshot wound just east of Monument Circle around 2:20 a.m. May 31, 2020. He was taken to Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital, where he later died.
Newby turned himself in to police shortly after the shooting, approaching a Marion County Sheriff’s Office reserve deputy and saying, “I don’t know who I need to tell, but I just shot somebody.” The Indianapolis man was formally charged June 4, 2020, at age 29.
Jones was with Murrell at the hospital and told police he and his brother were near the Circle with a group of people when Murrell “got into an altercation with an unknown white male.” Jones told police he did not know the names of the people he was with when Murrell was shot but that one of them was “Marcus,” court documents say.
A friend of Newby also spoke to investigators and claimed he and Newby “thought things had calmed down so they came downtown to see what all had happened,” according to court documents.
The friend said a group of people approached him after “he picked up an orange/red gas canister that had been discharged.”
He said the group asked what he found. Newby said his friend didn’t want to show the group. The friend said a portion of the group “walked towards him and kind of pushed him a little bit, but no one hit him,” according to court documents.
Newby said he “felt a hand on his back and then he was shoved from behind and fell to the ground.” When he rolled over, he said someone was standing over him. He said “the male did not say anything to him nor did he strike him.”
Newby then pulled out his gun and fired one shot, according to court documents.
“It all happened so fast, it was just a reaction,” Newby told investigators.
An autopsy revealed Murrell was shot in the heart.
