INDIANAPOLIS — Neighbors who said they feared going on camera told FOX59 News that a wild overnight party at the Warren Harbor Apartments led to a shootout that left five people wounded and one woman under arrest.
Cell phone video obtained by FOX59 News shows the moment the party turned into chaos when two women were struck by gunfire as bystanders attempted to treat them. One of the victims is listed in critical condition.
Dozens of gunshots were heard, witnesses said.
In the hours after the shooting, two women and one man reported to Indianapolis hospitals with gunshot wounds. One of those women, Raniya Lee, 19, was arrested at Community East Hospital and charged with attempted murder.
12 hours after the gunfire, evidence of bullet holes in vehicles and an apartment window, as well as discarded shoes and other debris, were evidence of the violence that occurred in the vicinity of surveillance cameras.
Through June 1, Indianapolis’ homicide and non-fatal shooting totals were both down more than 10% when compared with last year’s record-setting paces. However, that is no comfort to Yeo Zenith Eaton, an ex-marine who said he has legally carried a firearm for 35 years and was confronted twice in the last week on the eastside by gun-wielding teenagers.
“One was at a service station and one was at a grocery store,” he said.
At the grocery store, as he stood in line, Eaton said a teenager wearing a ski mask with a gun on his hip walked in, so the veteran spoke to him.
“He runs out the door and busts back in the store with another guy with a magazine, a firearm with an extended magazine and a ski mask, and nobody said nothing to him,” said Eaton. “He was getting ready to rob the store and when I spoke to him that broke his attention and made him focus on me and his focus of aggression was on me and quite naturally the owner of the store or nobody said anything to him because they didn’t want to be put in danger.”
Eaton said he also stopped Saturday afternoon at a N. Arlington Ave. convenience store when a car with two young females blocked him in at the gasoline pump.
“I was asking the two young ladies could they move out of the way. One of them brandished a firearm in the car,” said Eaton, who recalled the girl immediately began cursing at him. “I did step out of my vehicle and I had my firearm at my side and I’m trying to reason with her, telling her, ‘Please don’t.’ Because she seen that I had a firearm and she knew that somebody wasn’t gonna walk away from that situation, it was gonna end up bad for somebody.”
Eaton said he carries his Indiana firearms permit, and his gun, wherever he goes.
“Number one, I feel threatened. I don’t feel safe and I feel like certain times when I see a younger person with a firearm and the person looks 16 or 17 with a big long extended magazine, are we in Iraq or we in Indianapolis? So it look like I have to be prepared to defend myself,” he said. “I don’t have no fear, but when I see a younger person 16, 17 with a ski mask on, then I’m very concerned and very fearful and scared.
“I’m not paranoid, but I’m aware of my surroundings and pay attention”
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is continuing its search for other shooters from Sunday morning’s incident.
