IMPD shares surveillance photo of suspects in downtown canal shooting
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indianapolis police on Wednesday afternoon shared a photo of the suspects in an overnight shooting along the downtown canal that injured four women and a man.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department says two officers on bicycles heard gunshots just after midnight Monday near the Colts Canal Playspace along the Canal Walk. The playground is immediately east of the canal between West St. Clair and West Walnut streets.
Deputy Chief Kendale Adams on Wednesday afternoon said the shootout happened between two groups that had some sort of ongoing dispute. He said it’s not clear when the argument began but it could have started months earlier. Adams said bullets hit four women in one of the groups. A man who was with them shot himself in the foot while he was trying to draw his own gun to return fire. Adams said investigators expect all five to recover.
Police says the women shot were ages 17, 18, 23, and 24. The man’s age was not known.
Adams said something like this shooting is very unusual in the downtown area. “When you look at downtown comparative to other parts of the city, downtown is just a sliver of the crime challenges we face,” he said. “When I say small, really minute level of crime versus other parts of the city.”
Some of the victims shot had children with them and one person involved was walking a dog, according to IMPD Maj. Kerry Buckner. Buckner did not say if the dog was injured.
“It is warming up, and it’s obvious that people cannot control themselves on a warm night in Indianapolis,” Buckner said early Tuesday near the shooting scene. “The canal used to be a real nice place to come down (and) bring your family to walk at night. Yeah, not anymore.”
Buckner says people living along the canal are “over” the crime and recklessness of others. “We have a lot of witnesses because the people that live here are fed up. They’re fed up with what’s going on and they have cameras and they pay attention and they tell us and they talk to us.”
The overnight shooting certainly caught Tobey Stong off guard. Stong, who lives just up the canal from the site of the shooting, was walking along the bank when he heard the shots.
“I decided to turn around, and the next thing you know, I saw a bunch of sirens and cops and I was like, I’m glad I turned around,” he said.
Stong says the area along the canal normally is a fun and vibrant place to be. He said it’s fairly well-lit at night so he didn’t have any safety concerns beforehand. Stong said he doesn’t plan to take any further midnight strolls for the time being.
IMPD shared a photo of the suspects from a surveillance camera along the canal, but no suspects have been identified.
The deputy police chief says IMPD has a lot of surveillance video from the area due to a combination of city-owned cameras and other cameras operated by private businesses. He says investigators don’t yet have a clear suspect description they can share because they’re still reviewing the footage.
“We, as a community. have to identify who’s involved in this and apprehend them,” Adams said Wednesday. “They had no care for those that were out on the canal yesterday. It just speaks to the brazen nature of the suspects and it speaks to the seriousness that we’re taking as far as finding out who they are.”
IMPD were also looking into a shooting that happened just after 11 p.m. Tuesday near Washington Park.
Anyone with information on either shooting should call IMPD at 317-327-3811 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477.
