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IMPD investigating after man robbed by teen outside church

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Indianapolis Metropolitan police are investigating a robbery that took place outside a church.

It happened Friday evening at The Sanctuary Church, near 33rd Street and Post Road.

The victim says not only did this crime happen outside of a church, but it happened in front of a child.

Church greeter James Ewing said he was locking up for the night and taking the trash out when a group of teenagers and a younger child he guessed to be around 10 years old cut through the church parking lot.

He said one of those teens broke away from the group and came up to him with a gun.

“He came over here and had a little gun right there on the side and said, ‘What you got on you?’” said Ewing.

Ewing said he tossed the teen his wallet, and then the group hopped a fence and ran off.

“He wasn’t really a killer I don’t believe. … It was just a crime of opportunity thing,” said Ewing.

A crime he says still should have never happened.

“In broad daylight at 7 o’clock? They got nerve to be out trying to rob somebody,” said Cleveen McBeath, deacon at The Sanctuary Church. He says parents need to start getting more involved in the lives of their kids.

“I don’t want nobody thinking that I’m saying these kids are bad kids, because I don’t think that they are bad kids. I just think they are just being misguided,” said McBeath.

Both he and Ewing hope these teens find a better path.

“There’s a better way you can live your life than taking a chance on getting your life taken away from you,” said McBeath.

“I’d hate for them to be out there and try to do that to somebody else and the next time it may not go well for them. I went home and I prayed for them. I just prayed for them,” said Ewing.

Ewing ended up finding his wallet in a nearby yard Saturday afternoon. He said $20 in cash was missing, but everything else was still inside.

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