INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – A 62-year-old Indianapolis woman is recovering after being injured in a shooting Friday morning.
That woman was one of two people hurt in a pair of overnight shootings. With a shattered window and pierced door, the side of Rhonda Pitts’ car is riddled with bullet holes.
“You see those shots in the car. He tried his best not to miss me,” said Pitts.
Rhonda says she was told a man broke into her car, so she went outside to drive around and search for the suspect.
Rhonda spotted the suspect walking through an empty lot and pulled over to confront the suspect, when the man opened fire, shooting at Rhonda from point-blank range.
“He just took the gun out. Pow, pow, pow, pow. I heard about six shots,” said Pitts.
After being shot in the hip, Rhonda hit the gas and sped away down the street.
“I was like, ‘God I’ve just been shot.’ I couldn’t believe it,” said Pitts.
“The shooting this morning is certainly troubling,” said Rev. Charles Harrison with the Indianapolis 10 Point Coalition. “We’re still plagued with the same challenges we’ve seen for six or seven years with a surge in violence.”
Rhonda’s shooting took place just a block away from reverend Harrison’s church.
In another shooting just two hours earlier, police say a domestic argument led to a man being shot in the chest on Indy’s near east side.
Earlier this week on Monday night, five people were wounded in a series of shootings over just four hours.
As of last week, the city has seen 90 non-fatal shootings this year. That’s one a day, although the numbers are down slightly from last year when the city finished with 448 non-fatal shootings, along with 433 in 2017, 424 in 2016 and 426 in 2015.
So far this year, Indianapolis has seen 36 total homicides. That is the exact same number the city saw on this date in 2018.
“If people are going to continue to resolve their conflicts with violence the numbers are not going to go down,” said Harrison. “We put too much on law enforcement to solve senseless acts of violence that we see in our community.”
For her part, Rhonda knows she’s lucky she survived and wants her attacker behind bars.
“I just hope he’s caught because I could be dead right now,” said Pitts. “I thank God I’m here to tell this story.”
So far no arrests have been made in either overnight shooting. Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 317-262-TIPS (8477).