Five people, including a pregnant woman, were shot dead inside a house in Indianapolis in an apparent targeted attack, the police chief said. The killings are described as ‘mass murder’ and ‘another kind of evil’.
The fatal shooting was discovered Sunday by police who found a young man with gunshot wounds before they were called in around 4am to investigate reports of a person being shot on the northeast side of the city, said Sergeant Shane Foley of the metropolitan police in Indianapolis said.
The call led them to a nearby home, where they found five adults dead inside due to apparent gunshot wounds.
No suspects were in custody Sunday night.
Kezzie Childs, 42, Raymond Childs, 42, Elijah Childs, 18, Rita Childs, 13, and Kiara Hawkins, 19, and Hawkins’ unborn child were pronounced dead after being found in the home, Foley said.
Hawkins was first taken to a hospital, but she and the unborn child died despite life-saving efforts, Foley said.
He said the youth initially found with gunshot wounds is expected to survive and police believe he was wounded during the shooting that killed the five others, along with the unborn child.
Police Chief Randal Taylor said police believed the deadly shooting was not random, but that it was a targeted attack.
He said the shooting took place days after police officials announced their latest efforts to combat violent, drug-related crimes and “violence driven by poverty or desperation”.
“But what we saw this morning was a different kind of evil. “What happened this morning, based on the evidence gathered so far, was mass murder,” Taylor told a news conference. “More so, we believe it was not random.”
Taylor said it was the largest mass casualty shooting in the city in more than a decade, and urged the public to contact police and pass on all information about the killings.
Mayor Joe Hogsett calls the shooting incident ‘mass murder’ and says that an individual or individuals ‘brought terror to our community’. He said he contacted officials with the FBI’s field office in Indianapolis, the local U.S. Attorney’s Office and other law enforcement agencies for help with the shooting investigation.
“I want those responsible to know that the full power of local, state and federal law enforcement is coming to them as I speak,” he said.