INDIANAPOLIS — An Indianapolis mother is looking for answers about who killed her son over the weekend.
Dajuan Barnett, 33, was found shot to death inside a pickup truck on Saturday night.
Just before 5 p.m., someone reported an unresponsive man sitting in the driver’s seat of a pickup truck behind a home in the 2800 block of North Olney Street. When first responders arrived, they found Barnett shot to death.
“When I got that news I just dropped and it was like my heart went to my stomach,” said Dajuan’s mother, Amana Turner.
Turner got the call that night and rushed to the scene. Days later, she’s still wondering who killed her son and why.
“Who would do this to my son? My son didn’t have no enemies,” Turner said. “He was the type of person to be in the streets like that.”
Turner described her son as a quiet, polite man who was always willing to lend a hand. Barnett was the father to a 10-year-old girl, which Turner says has the been hardest thing to deal with.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Turner said. “Somebody took my son from me. Somebody took a father away from a daughter.”
IMPD believes the killing happened earlier that afternoon, but investigators don’t have much to go on at this point.
Barnett’s killing in this alley marked the 12th homicide in the city this month and that number has since grown. Both his mother and police said people need to stop and think before picking up a gun and pulling the trigger.
“People are right now reaching for a weapon to solve a problem rather than communication,” Sgt. Genae Cook said.
Turner echoed a similar message and wants the community to step up and help find her son’s killer.
“I just want the person or persons who done this to my son to really understand that you took a life. You took a life,” Turner said. “I want justice.”
When asked, IMPD said it had no updates in the case today.
Anyone with information on this case is urged to give CrimeStoppers a call at (317) 262-TIPS.
