Community leaders call for change following string of gun violence involving teens

INDIANAPOLIS — The death of 15-year-old Sadayreon Edwards on Indianapolis' northeast side Tuesday morning has many in the community searching for answers.

“Heart drop – sad – we are losing our young people,” Donita Royal with Mothers Against Violence Healing Ministry said.

Edwards was shot in the 6400 block of Meadowlark Drive and left lying in the middle of the street. That’s near North Arlington Avenue and 42nd Street in the Devington neighborhood.

“Life is just taken for granted in so many ways – a mother grieving over her child,” Mercedes Morris said.

Mercedes Morris has lived in the area where the Tuesday morning shooting took place.

“It makes it scary to even want to do things with our kids,” Morris said.

Morris has twins of her own and she wants to be able to enjoy the outdoors with her children without having to worry about gun violence.

“You don’t want to go to Chuck E. Cheese because there was a shooting – you don’t want to go to a park because there was a shooting there, it makes it hard especially us as single women," Morris said.

Donita Royal runs an organization called Mothers Against Violence Healing Ministry.

“Nowadays you better follow where they are going, that’s where we are at now – you must follow and see where your teenagers are at,” Royal said.

Royal echoes many of the community leaders’ recent messages.

“It’s time for the aunties and the uncles to come together – you got to find somebody to follow them and see what they are doing – you got to see what your kids are doing,” Royal said.