INDIANAPOLIS -
Police are still searching for a man they now call a person of interest in the shooting a 13-year-old boy.
Jarrell Tucker was shot several times Sunday night. He died at Riley Hospital Monday evening. After first telling Eyewitness News that 56-year-old Glenn Beard was questioned and released after the shooting, police now say he was never in custody and was never questioned.
Beard lives in the 100 block of North Denny Street, where the shooting occurred, but has not been home since the incident Sunday night.
Tucker's family tells Eyewitness News the teenager was running through the alley next to Beard's home while engaged in a fight with other children. Witnesses say Beard fired three shots, striking Tucker twice.
"He shot my son two times. Once in the head and once in the leg," said Tucker's mother, Dayna.
Tuesday, Eyewitness News learned the teenager was hit in the back of the head, above his right ear. That's the shot that doctors say left Tucker brain dead.
Meanwhile, IMPD officials now say that Beard immediately fled North Denny Street without ever talking to detectives, a change from initial reports Eyewitness News was given, claiming Beard was questioned and released after claiming self defense in the shooting.
"At no time was he questioned," said IMPD Acting Police Chief Rick Hite. "It was a mistake...in terms of identity. His brother was questioned. He was not questioned by police. If there is any other information other than that we would like to know it. All of our information indicates they talked to his brother."
According to police, witnesses saw Beard driving away in a truck after the gunshots were heard. Investigators say they didn't believe Beard had left the state.
"Never again. Never again should we stand here, looking like we're looking right now, with cameras pointing in front of us talking about another tragedy, another life being lost in Indianapolis," Hite said Tuesday night.
The cameras were there, though, as a neighborhood mourned the teenager.
As dozens of police, community leaders and Tucker's family gathered to remember him and mark National Night Out, a nationwide event to combat crime, gun shots rang out just one street over on Chester Street.
Several police surrounded a home and then questioned neighbors. Police did not find out who was behind the shots. The incident was a chilling reminder of the shots that rang out just before Tucker's friends and family found him shot in an alley near his home.
"It's very hard to lose a child. I can't even explain to tell y'all how it feels cause he could never come back," said Tucker's mother, Dayna.
Compounding Dayna Tucker's grief, the person of interest in her son's death, Beard, has still not been found.
"We do not need somebody like him on the street, please turn him in," begged Dayna Tucker.
"If it means that this day is Ground Zero and no one else dies in this city, that's what we're here about," Hite told the crowd.
Police are actively searching for Beard and ask anyone with information on his whereabouts to call Crime Stoppers at 262-TIPS.
Glenn Beard, 56, is now described as a person of interest in the shooting death of a teenager.
Jarrell Tucker died Monday of injuries he suffered in the Sunday night shooting.
Jarrell at eight years old.
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