Downtown Shooting Of Black Teen By Another Juvenile Ruled An Accidental Shooting

It's quite curious that it took WTHR's Richard Essex more than 12 hours to report the basic facts he learned when he was riding with a police officer who was the first to respond to the report of a shooting at 3:00 a.m. this morning in the J.W. Marriott Hotel parking garage in downtown Indianapolis. Essex gave few details about the shooting until a story he just posted online where he says police and the prosecutor's office have already determined the fatal shooting of the 17-year old black male victim, Darnell Franklin, was an accidental shooting by another black juvenile. Essex wants to make clear the victim's shooting had nothing to do with Black Expo's activities; rather, Franklin and some friends decided to drive downtown in the middle of the night to pick up some girls in the J.W. Marriott's parking garage when one of the occupants accidentally discharged a gun he was picking up off the floorboard of the car. The shooter, a juvenile, faces charges of reckless homicide, a Class C felony. The prosecutor's office will have to decide whether to waive the juvenile into adult court. From WTHR:

Officers were called just after 3 a.m. Sunday to the Marriott Hotel parking garage in the 600 block of West Washington on the report of a person shot.

They arrived and found 17-year-old Darnell Franklin suffering from an apparent gunshot wound to his back.  He was transported to Wishard Hospital where he later died from his wounds.

Darnell and five others drove in the same car to the Marriott Hotel to meet some female friends. 

Based on the interviews, they were not at any Indiana Black Expo events, but came down after, not arriving until nearly 3:00am.  While they were still in the car, one of the passengers in the backseat reached down to pick a gun up from the floorboard of the car, with his finger on the trigger, accidentally shooting Darnell in the back.

Darnell Franklin Twitter Photo

The five other occupants in the vehicle with Darnell were family members and friends.  

The Marion County Prosecutor's Office has reviewed the case and the determination was made to arrest a juvenile male.  He has been charged with reckless homicide (as a "C" felony) and carrying a handgun without a license (as an "A" misdemeanor).  The accused has been transported to Juvenile Detention.  It is unknown if he will be waived to adult court.

Essex' updated report makes no mention of the fact that he was present with the first responding police officers or the race of the victim. He goes to great length to disassociate the shooting from Black Expo, ignoring the fact that the White Party took place at the neighboring convention center, which did not end until 2:00 a.m. this morning or that a number of attendees to the Black Expo event were staying at the J.W. Marriott.

The Indianapolis Star reported earlier today that it had spoken to the mother of one of the individuals being detained by police earlier today. She told the Star her son had gone downtown with his brother and friends to have fun and never returned home last night. She told the Star she had no idea her son was being detained by police in connection with the shooting. What kind of parents allow their teens to head out on the streets in the middle of the night? And don't expect to see any people in the streets protesting and demanding justice for the death of Darnell Franklin like they've been protesting the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the self defense shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Check out this must see video from Bill Whittle at PJTV's "Afterburner."


UPDATE: Possible posts from the Twitter account of the victim, Darnell Franklin, using the handle, Lilbadass22:

UPDATE II: Fox59 News' Russ McQuaid scores an interview with Franklin's grieving mother, Traci Love. She has advice for other parents:

“They were about to ride around, talk to some girls, whatever,” said Franklin’s mother Traci Love. “They were about to meet some girls in a hotel room downtown somewhere.

“His friend was in the back seat of the car and the gun went off mistakenly.”

Love’s eyes welled up with tears as she struggled to make sense of her son’s death.

“I believe that these children need to wake up and stop playing with guns because this is tragic. I mean, my son died and it was an accident and it was his friend.

“Its killing me and I don’t know at this point how I’m even going to get through what just happened to me,” she said. “My son’s gone.

“Guns and violence is not the way and you that something’s going to happen eventually and here I am and its something that I would never imagine that would ever happen to me.

“My son is gone and my son has lost his life because someone accidentally shot him and I’ve got to deal with that. I’ve got to deal with that everyday of my life until I’m dead.

“They need to put the guns down.”