Caught on camera: Nearly 50 shots fired during brazen midday shootout
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A brazen shootout sent almost 50 bullets flying through the air Friday afternoon in a west-side neighborhood.
Cars, mailboxes, houses and at least two people were shot, and the sound was caught on tape. The shooting occurred in the 1000 block of Denison Street near Washington Street and Holt Road.
Alyssa Vaught, wearing a blue sweatshirt, is in the video. At the crack of the first gunshot, she heads for the back porch and grabs her daughter.
“There is usually a lot of gunshots on this road, so we really didn’t know it was an actual shooting at first,” Vaught said.
She and the rest of her family hesitated briefly as the shooting stopped, then a second round of gunfire rang out. The video shows Vaught run inside with her daughter and Alyssa’s brother Ronnie Vaught. He is the one in video wearing black pants.
I-Team 8 asked Ronnie Vaught to narrate the video from his perspective. He said at first the gunshots sounded like fireworks. “Then I noticed it was gunfire because of the different caliber bullets and then I saw the first gun and then I saw them coming toward us and that is when I tried to corral everyone inside.”
As the shooting appears to get closer to his house, he scrambles around the yard looking for any children who may still be outside. Eventually, the family makes it into the house. They found safety in the bathroom.
Listening to the video, I-Team 8 counted 47 shots fired.
At least three houses were hit.
The owner of a red sedan lost the back window to her car to a bullet; the same goes for her daughter’s car. The front of her house was hit twice.
The trigger men had their sights set on Ashton Gibbs; he had been hiding behind the two cars.
Ronnie Vaught said, “This is one and it goes, I think, I got hit and it goes through and there is another one right here,” Vaught said.
Gibbs was hit by two bullets, both hit his left thigh. He believes he was intended target of the shooting. “Yeah, I was just walking down the street and all I seen was shooting, and so I took off running and I took off running behind a car and I was behind a car and they were just shooting.”
Gibbs’ father lives across the street. He declined to talk with I-Team 8 on-camera but said when he saw that his son had been shot he returned fire.
In the video, the last couple of shots — the ones that sent the Vaught family running into their house — Gibbs’ father said those shots were from his .45-caliber pistol. Gibbs’ father also told I-Team 8 that the shooters were wearing masks, and he wasn’t sure why they were coming after his son.
Gibbs told I-Team 8, “I mean, I got other stuff with people but nothing like that, nothing that would get me killed, you know what I mean. I think there were trying to get me.”
Two of the shooting victims were recovering Monday.