INDIANAPOLIS — The mass shooting Monday at a Colorado supermarket was the sixth in 2021 with four or more fatalities, according to a national database.
Ten people, including the first police officer to arrive at the scene, died in the shooting at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado. A lone suspect is in custody, police said.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, Indianapolis is the only city to have two mass homicides since the start of the year.
On Jan. 24, Kezzie Childs, 42, Raymond Childs, 42, Elijah Childs, 18, Rita Childs, 13, Kiara Hawkins, 19, and Hawkins' unborn child died, and a teenage boy was wounded, in a shooting at a house in the 3500 block of Adams Street on the northeast side of Indianapolis.
Raymond Ronald Lee Childs III, 17, is charged with six counts of murder in the case Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Randal Taylor called, "the largest mass casualty shooting in more than a decade."
The Adams Street killings occurred about six weeks before Malik Halfacre, 25, allegedly killed four people and wounded a fifth during an argument over a stimulus check on March 13 at a home in the 300 block of North Randolph Street on the city's east side.
Eve Moore, 7, Dequan Moore, 23, Anthony Johnson, 35, and Tomeeka Brown, 44, died in the quadruple homicide.
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said Halfacre, who is charged with four counts of murder, qualifies for the death penalty, but he will first discuss the matter with the family of the victims.
"I think everybody asks the same question about the 7-year-old: 'Why?'" Mears said. "She didn't have anything to do with the stimulus check. She didn't have anything to do with the money, and she lost her life. And if that doesn't break your heart, I don't know what will."
Two other mass shootings have occurred in Indianapolis in 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
On Feb. 13, four people were wounded in a shooting near the intersection of East 38th Street and North Sherman Avenue.
About a month later on March 15, one person died and five others were injured in a shooting at a house in the 2300 block of North Harding Street.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 40,000 were killed in incidents involving firearms in 2019.
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