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INDIANAPOLIS — In less than five months in 2020, four Indianapolis teenagers were murdered in connected killings that never resulted in arrests though police largely figured out the motives and who was involved.
The killing of 16-year-old Ameir Ford is the focus of the latest “Indy Unsolved.”
”I still to this day don’t even know what even happened,” said Ford’s mother.
Ford was a football player at Warren Central High School where an assistant principal kept an eye on him.
His mother said the teen was a twin, in the middle of her nine children, played drums, brought friends to church and was caught with a gun in February of 2020.
”I got on him for it and he knew I wasn’t happy about it cuz he knew that I don’t indulge in it,” she said. ”I don’t know if it came from a friend but Ameir didn’t carry a gun.”
A month later, a brother of one of Ameir’s friends was shot to death with another teenager in 2500 block of North Emerson Avenue.
Investigators think John Jennings, 18, and Demario McCullough, 17, were involved in a gun sale that turned into murder.
Ameir’s mother said her son was upset over the killings.
Later that summer, outside of the Best Choice Fieldhouse in Fishers, 17-year-old Thomas Pearson of Indianapolis was shot to death.
Fishers Police think Pearson’s killer was shot shortly later in Indianapolis and died of his gunshot wounds.
Ten days after Pearson’s killing, on August 23, Ford was gunned down outside of his mother’s unit at the Washington Pointe Apartments on the far east side.
”When I pull up I see my son laying there. I see people everywhere. I see an ambulance,” said Ameir’s mother. ”There was bullet holes everywhere. In cars and I think there was like 17 shell casings.”
Police searched unsuccessfully for a Chevy Trailblazer they believe was circling the parking lot watching for Ford before he walked up to his mother’s apartment.
”Didn’t hear of no beef, no arguments, don’t hear anything,” she said. “I’m left in the dark about everything.”
IMPD homicide detectives continued to investigate the killings along with Fishers police on the theory that the teens were involved in gun dealing and retaliation murders until their cases literally hit dead ends.
”When I would ask the detective have they heard anything, he told me that a person in question regarding Ameir’s death is now deceased,” said Ford’s mother. ”It doesn’t bring justice to Ameir’s case or to my family, so, I wonder if that person is deceased, I’m not joyous behind it because I’m not that type of person. I wouldn’t want that person deceased.”
Investigators confirm the main players in the three incidents that led to four teen murders in 2020 are likely dead.
“What is the attraction that teenage boys have with having guns?” I asked Ford’s mother.
“It’s the way to go,” she said. “To them, that’s the lifestyle to them. They’re infatuated with this lifestyle, listening to the rap music and smoking the weed and drinking. It’s the cool thing to do. Its like you’re not cool if you don’t have a gun.”
Ameir’s mother asked me not to show her face on TV or reveal her name.
I asked why.
”Because I am a mother and someone murdered my son and I don’t know who it is and I don’t want them to know who I am,” she said. “And I don’t want people to screenshot and do all they wanna do and make fun of you and all that and my son’s killer could still be out there.”
Last year, more than two dozen juveniles were killed by firearms in Marion County.
More than 60 survived their gunshot wounds.
If you can shed any light on the murders over guns that took four teenage lives in 2020, call Crimestoppers at (317) 262-TIPS.
If your information leads to a conviction, it could result in a $1,000 reward.
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