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Family living in fear after 5 shot this summer outside of funeral home

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — “One-hit wonder” is the phrase teenager Jamese Cox uses to describe the day she was shot leaving a funeral with her family.

The 16-year-old girl thinks the criminal case has lost its importance, and her family is left wondering why.

“I have a bullet in me forever, 2 inches away from my heart,” Jamese said and then began crying.

The shooting happened the afternoon of July 31 at Sprowl Funeral & Cremation Care, 1134 W. 30th St. That’s southwest of the I-65 interchange for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

The 16-year-old says she was trying to shield other family members when she was shot. Jamese says she was mostly successful in shielding others, but one bullet ended up hitting her 4-year-old cousin, Azaria, in the head. Three men ages 21, 31 and 49, who Cox says are family members, also were shot.

Azaria’s mom, Brittia Williams, said Wednesday about her daughter, “She says, ‘Hey, mom I want this scar gone. I want this gone. It won’t go away.”

Williams says the days after the shooting were some of the worst of her life. She says her children were taken away from her by Indiana Department of Child Services.

“When it starts to feel a little normal, you know, and, here it is, the rug is snatched right under my kids’ lives again, and it’s not fair,” Williams said.

Similar to Williams, Jamese’s mom, Jessica Robinson, said the family feels unsafe and unprotected.

Robinson said that after the shooting, “I didn’t go outside. I didn’t look out windows. When my children have to go to school I actually have to be outside at their bus stop. My children have actually seen this guy, Dominique. He’s been riding around in our area.”

Robinson was referring to Dominique Baquet, who has been charged in the shooting. Court documents show Master Commissioner John Jay Boyce set Baquet’s bond at $100,000, but Judge Mark D. Stoner later lowered the bond to $20,000. The lowered bond was done against the wishes of the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office.

Baquet paid the bond Aug. 20 and was released on GPS monitoring.

When News 8 asked Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department on Wednesday about the family’s claim of Baquet being seen in the family’s neighborhood, an IMPD representative promised to pass on the information to the investigator.

The charges against Baquet, filed on Aug. 14, do not directly imply he fired the shots that injured the victims. Both charges are gun-related. Court documents say surveillance video shows another person shooting before Baquet. So far, that person has not been named.

Baquet is due back in court Monday.