INDIANAPOLIS — A 21-year-old man is still recovering from a shooting outside Castleton Square Mall earlier this week. It was a shooting in which a 16-year-old boy, Michael Mason, Jr., was shot and killed.
Indianapolis Metro Police have said that an “altercation” took place before the shots were fired. But Eddie Smith, Sr., the father of the 21-year-old man, tells WISH-TV that’s not what happened.
“There was absolutely no altercation,” Smith said. “This was basically a 16-year-old kid grabbing the door handle and trying to get into a car that’s identical to my son’s car and this kid being gunned down.”
Smith, who is a pastor at a local church, said that his son is the type of person who takes younger people under his wing. He was hanging out with the teenage boy at the mall that night.
Smith said the shooter was inside a car that look exactly like his son’s that was parked next to his son’s white Chevy Impala in the mall’s parking lot. When the teenage boy went to open the passenger side door of the shooter’s car, thinking it was his son’s, the man inside started unloading gunshots from inside the car.
“(The shooter) just unloaded on them and then got out, shot him some more while he was down,” said Smith. “Then began to chase after my son, and then when he caught my son, my son had to crawl into a fetal position.”
Smith said the shooting was senseless.
“There was absolutely nothing; no ill intent, no ill will, no altercation,” he said. “This guy murdered a kid.”
So far no arrest has been made in the shooting by police while they investigate the situation. Police held the man who fired the shots as a person of interest, but it’s not clear if he is still in custody.
