Two friends planning a Friday night of fun were shot, one fatally, during a spree of weekend shootings in Gary that left six men wounded, including another homicide victim and one who was hit with a BB gun, police said Monday.
Deonte Ballard, 22, was found dead in his home in the 1200 block of Aetna Street about 10:30 p.m., police said. Cpl. Del Flores and other officers first went to another house on the block where Medric Canady, 25, was found with a large gunshot wound in his cheek and jaw, the police report states.
Residents there told police they believed Ballard also had been shot. They told Flores that Canady had gone to his friend’s house “to possibly go out for the night,” the police report states. Canady was able to flee the house after he was shot, police said.
Police noted there were numerous .223 caliber shell casings in Ballard’s house and around Ballard’s body, the report states.
Canady was moved to a hospital in Chicago, but Detectives Cpl. Edward Gonzalez and James Bond declined to say which hospital. He is in serious condition, they said.
“We are following a few leads,” Bond said. He declined to elaborate on the status of the investigation.
In another case, George Blackmon, 58, was shot and killed at his home in the 1600 block of West 10th Place about 1 a.m. Saturday. Michael Henderson, 39, of Indianapolis, is in custody and charged with robbery and murder in that case, police said.
Earlier Friday, Bryant Walden, 25, a resident of Lakeshore Dunes apartments, suffered a graze wound to his ear while standing outside the convenience store at the entrance to the complex in the 400 block of North Lake Street, police said. He was uncooperative with police, but witnesses said they saw him “acting in a weird manner” and used his hands to gesture as if shooting a gun to occupants of a car. A man stepped out of the car and shot Walden, police said.
About 11 p.m. Friday, several residents of the St. John Homes apartment complex reported hearing gunfire. A 25-year-old man said he and his girlfriend were walking up to her door when he heard someone talking loudly, and he turned to see a black man he didn’t know shoot at him. The man returned fire and neither he nor his girlfriend were wounded.
However, Camar Davis, 19, a resident there, said he was shot in the shoulder and buttocks while standing in the alley in the 2100 block of Carolina Street during the same incident. Several residents also reported that their cars were damaged by gunfire, police said.
On Saturday, police were summoned to the Methodist Hospitals Northlake campus for a gunshot victim but learned that Todd Douglas, 38, had been shot above the knee with a BB gun, the police report states. Douglas was outside a Miller apartment complex at a friend’s house when he said he saw a black Cadillac stop before a man shot at him several times.
