INDIANAPOLIS — Antonio Patton has spent most of the past two days helping the family of 12-year-old drive-by shooting victim Dayshawn Bills, who was left brain dead by a bullet that went through his grandmother’s house on Leland Avenue and struck him in the head as he played video games about 3:30 a.m. Thursday.
Bills passed away late Friday afternoon.
"Angry, mad is an understatement - I'm like a volcano,” said Patton. “I'm brewing and I'm ready to spew out all kind of lava. Why? Because I'm at grandma's. It gets no safer than that, and I have a son. I know people with sons. If we can't be safe in the confidence of our homes, where can we be safe at?"
Patton is the founder of M.O.V.E. (Men Of Vision Empower), an organization working on several fronts to reduce gun violence and improve the lives of young people on the far east side of Indianapolis.
Thirty-four children under the age of 18 have been shot in Indianapolis in 2021. Four have died. The gun violence overwhelmingly involves young Black men.
"If we don't stop with the gun violence, there won't be none of us,” said Patton, who is Black. “We won't be around. It's not even summer yet. We're setting records. One hundred (homicides) in Indianapolis didn't used to happen until about October, November. Not only that, we were setting records in the pandemic with murders. How is it that we can't even be outside, but we're still finding ways to kill one another?"
I took a walk with Patton at East 42nd Street and North Post Road. He believes young people deal with post-traumatic stress disorder from growing up in the blight of the far east side.
He said more people in Indianapolis should care and get involved with solutions.
"Every church, every pastor, every politician, every law enforcement, every firefighter, everybody that owns a business, every teacher, every doctor, every NASCAR racer, every NBA player - we're accountable,” said Patton. “We're accountable for these babies. Blue, Black, green, orange, white, yellow - I don't care what color we are, unite. Unity is where we are strongest at. America was built off love, integrity - real values. Somewhere along the line we've got away from that. We were concerned about the neighbor on the left and on the right and down the street, if they were OK."
Patton believes the battle against violence can be won.
“Absolutely, absolutely I believe that,” said Patton. “Why? Because I believe in Jesus Christ. He is a conduit who has never lost a fight."
But the young lives lost make the battle painful and difficult.