Several People Shot on Indy’s Northeast Side

Source: WISH-TV 

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A woman died, a man was critically hurt, and four other adults were injured after a shooting at a Christmas gathering Wednesday afternoon inside a house on the city’s northeast side.

Coroners on Thursday identified the woman killed as 37-year-old Ana Paredes.

A person of interest, identified as Sanchez Garzon, was not shot but taken to a hospital with injuries not believed to be life-threatening, police say. IMPD announced his arrest Thursday morning.

Police had initially said five adults in total were shot, but reported Wednesday night that that they’d learned a sixth adult who was shot had walked into a hospital.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers were sent just before 12:30 p.m. Wednesday to the shooting at a house in the 6400 block of Meadowlark Drive. That’s a few blocks east of the intersection of 42nd Street and Arlington Avenue in the Devington neighborhood.

A news release issued Wednesday night said the holiday gathering involved family and friends.

In an impromptu news conference about two hours after the shooting, Officer Tommy Thompson said, “First, let me start off with saying how tragic this incident is. Again, we’re on on Christmas Day, another shooting, and a family involved.”

A disturbance at the holiday gathering led to the shooting, Thompson said.

Officers arrived to find a woman shot outside the house, and she and a man “self-transported” from the home to a hospital. They were last reported to be stable.

Officers then worked to confirm no one was actively shooting.

Upon entering the home, officers found four uninjured children — all younger than 18 — in the front living room, and a man and a woman each shot in a back room of the home. The man and woman were taken from the home to a hospital. The woman, Paredes, later died. The man was last reported to be stable.

Later, police learned, a man shot at the home had walked into a medical clinic at 86th Street and Allisonville Road about 1 p.m. Wednesday. He was transported from the clinic to a hospital, where he was last reported to be in critical condition.

Even later in the day, a man shot at the house walked into Eskenazi Hospital, police said in the updated news release issued Wednesday night. That man’s condition was not immediately available.

A Thursday morning news release says officers responding to the area located a Hispanic male matching the suspect’s description hiding in nearby bushes. The male, Garzon, was taken to a hospital with minor lacerations. IMPD detained him as a person of interest, but he was later named a suspect and arrested for murder.

The Wednesday night news release said, “A total of six (6) victims with injuries consistent with a gunshot wound(s). – Four (4) self-transported to area hospitals; Three (3) to Eskenazi Hospital and one (1) to St. Vincent Hospital. The two (2) victims located within the residence were transported to Methodist Hospital by EMS.”

Police found a firearm inside the house.

None of the names of the people shot or the person of interest have been publicly shared.

Multiple neighbors told I-Team 8’s Kody Fisher that a lot of parties have happened at the house, routinely causing a ruckus on the street. One neighbor wanted the people to move away.

People were seen carrying Christmas presents from the house after the shooting.

Thompson condemned the continuing gun violence in Indianapolis during the impromptu news conference. “I cannot reiterate how tragic this is for these children that were in this home and had to experience this event on a holiday, I cannot express that we have to do better to stop the gun violence and bringing guns into homes, guns into businesses, guns on our streets, to use them in this manner.”

Anyone with information was asked to call Detective Larry Craciunoiu at 317-327-3475 or e-mail the detective at larry.craciunoiu@indy.gov.

Police say the incident on Meadowlark was not connected to a shooting that happened around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday in the 4400 block of North Kitley Avenue. The two addresses are less than a half-mile apart.