16-year-old robbed at gunpoint for shoes; three armed robberies in same area

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Indianapolis police were investigating three armed robberies in the same neighborhood Wednesday morning.

Officers were called to armed robberies in the 2800 block of Sutherland Avenue, 2300 block of North Talbot Street and 2500 block of North College Avenue.

All the robberies happened between 7:12 a.m. and 7:31 a.m. in the same area – all less than a mile apart.

A fourth robbery was reported father north, in the 1300 block of Keensburg Court.

The victim of one of those robberies was a 16-year-old boy, who says he was robbed at gunpoint for his shoes.

Brandon Oyans, 16, said he was walking to the bus stop Wednesday morning around 7:30 when two men came up from the alley beside him and robbed him at gunpoint.

“Their car was parked in the bushes, and I was walking this way, and they came up the alley," he said. "When I stepped here, they stopped me and the dude put out a gun and … he said, ‘Come on walk this way or I’m going to shoot you.’”

Then he says they searched him, took his jacket and his shoes, and ran off. The boy said the shoes weren’t even his; they were his uncle’s. He’d let him wear them for the day.

“I was going to run, but he was like, 'If you run, I'm going to shoot you.' I didn’t even know what to do,” Oyans said.

Police say they're investigating the first three robberies as connected. They say all the incidents involved two black men, in their late teens or early 20's.

Stay tuned to WISHTV.com for the latest on this developing story.