INDIANAPOLIS — A family on the west side of Indy is grateful not to be hurt after a shootout started on their street.
A security camera was recording as a family scrambled to get inside their Denison St. home around 1 p.m. Saturday.
“They saw there were kids out here and everything and still did what they came here to do,” said Ronnie Vaught, one of the family members who ran inside as the shots started.
Vaught was in the backyard of his mother’s house with his mom, brother, sister and his sister’s daughter when the shots started.
“Within 30 seconds there were over 40, 50 bullets fired,” Vaught said.
Vaught said he saw three people in masks walk around his mother’s house on the corner and down the street to his neighbors.
“The three people who walked up they weren’t much older than 20 years old,” Vaught said.
When the gunshots first started, Vaught said he and his family couldn’t see the shooters and initially thought it was fireworks. Then, Vaught said he saw someone get shot.
“The first person hit the ground that got shot, as soon as I saw that, I knew it was a shootout,” Vaught said.
Vaught said the situation got even more dangerous when the original shooter started running and shooting back up the street.
“He’s all the way down the road now shooting all the way down this way with 20 different houses between him and his target, it could have hit anybody,” Vaught said.
Several houses were hit by gunfire.
“I didn’t see any on our house but their cars were getting hit, it went through someone’s fish tank in their house, so it was going through people’s windows and walls,” Vaught said.
After a few seconds of calm, Vaught said he left the house to go check on the person he saw get shot.
“I threw my hands up and said, ‘Are you okay, are you hurt, are you hurt?’ and he said, ‘I can’t move, I can’t move’,” Vaught said. “I ran around the bushes and he was just covered in blood.”
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said two people in total were shot and taken to the hospital.
“I started screaming to the neighbors, ‘Somebody help him, he’s bleeding he needs to go to the hospital’,” Vaught said.
IMPD did not do an interview. A spokesperson said they have no updates on the condition of the victims or on the investigation.
For Vaught, he is just thankful everyone he loves is okay.
“It scared me to death, but all my family is safe so that’s all that matters,” he said.
Vaught said all the neighbors are a bit on edge and that it is a little harder to sleep through the night when he hears a loud bang or distant gunshot. He added that he is hopeful what happened Saturday will not happen again.
