INDIANAPOLIS — Warren Bullock stood outside his townhome at the Villages at Mill Crossing and pointed across the parking lot.
“There’s been like four deaths right in this area. Guy with a domestic battery one thing right here. Another person got shot right here over in the ankle like in the front. Then another person got killed and another lady got killed right here, so, its scary, especially when its that close to home,” said Bullock, the morning after a child was shot to death literally at his front door. ”All I heard was pow pow pow. Six shots about on this side and another six shots on this side and I said, ‘Man, that’s really close to home.’”
Dayon Lyles’ mother said her son was 14 years old and a basketball player at the Indiana Math & Science Academy when he was shot to death Wednesday night.
”My son never beef with anybody. He gets along with everybody. He’s not a bad kid,” said Deshawna Lyles. ”My son was outside. I knew my son…I felt it, I felt my son before he got shot.”
“What did you see when you ran up?” I asked her.
“My son was on the ground bleeding, trying to gasp up for air,” she said. ”I just know my son was outside with his friends and things just escalated and my son ended up getting hit.”
One witness said that three people had been parked in a dark car, observing Lyles and his friends before they came around the corner of the building on foot, dressed in dark clothing and wearing ski masks and armed with a single gun, and opened fire.
Dayon was hit in the heart and struggled up the street before he collapsed.
That witness said at the same time, across the parking lot from where the children were gathered, a group of young women, also armed with a gun, were arguing with a resident over a stolen cell phone and threatening to shoot, but when gunfire broke out, the females ran away and also fired off shots.
“What they’re doing is they’re going around breaking into these cars getting guns,” said Bullock. “That’s what they do. Especially in the summertime, it was bad. They run around here and they plot on people’s cars. They break in your car, get your gun and they running around here like that, bro.”
The death of Dayon Lyles marks the 22nd child homicide in Indianapolis this year, typically as the result of gunfire.
Youths under the age of 17 make up more than ten percent of all homicides investigated by IMPD in 2023.
”When it gets dark, I’m bringing my kids in because I ain’t playing,” said Bullock, “because its ugly out here.”
