Man arrested in connection to fatal Castleton Mall shooting

CASTLETON — More than two months after the shooting death of a teenager outside of Castleton Square Mall, a person has been charged in connection with their death.

Clyde Johnson is charged with voluntary manslaughter, aggravated battery and battery by means of a deadly weapon in connection with the death of 16-year-old Michael Mason. Johnson killed Mason and shot another man in the leg four times.

The family members of the victims are unhappy with the charges.

"It feels like a gut punch all over again," Eddie Smith Sr., father of the man who survived, said. "He says he did it. He admits to chasing down my son. It was clearly murder."

Johnson was arrested on March 16.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to the mall parking lot for a person shot just before 8 p.m. on Jan. 3. There they located two people shot. Both victims were taken to the hospital, where Mason was pronounced dead.

According to court documents, Mason and a man named Justin Johnson-Sparks were at the mall on Jan. 3 and walked up to a car that looked the same as theirs in a similar area of the parking lot.

Johnson-Sparks told police at the scene that when the man exited the car with a gun he ran to a bush near the mall where the man in the car shot him, according to court documents.

A witness at the scene confirmed what Johnson-Sparks said to police.

The man in the car, identified now as Clyde Johnson, stayed at the scene.

Johnson told police when he noticed two men walking up on each side of his car, he felt like he was about to be robbed. When he felt that, he grabbed his gun and shot Mason on the passenger side.

He then tracked the man that turned out to be Johnson-Sparks and shot him, according to court documents.

Johnson told police at the scene, as witness to an unrelated homicide, he was afraid. He felt the people who approached the vehicle were there to “get him”.

Johnson specifically stated he was “being hunted”.