INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A woman who had just dropped off her two children at an Indianapolis day care center was shot and critically injured Tuesday morning in the center’s parking lot by a gunman she told officers was her ex-husband.
Police Lt. Chris Bailey said 17 children were inside the Eagle View KinderCare on the city’s northwest side at the time of the shooting, but none of them was injured.
Bailey said 31-year-old Shirley Justice was taken to Methodist Hospital about 7:45 a.m. in critical condition with multiple gunshot wounds after she was found bleeding next to her car. A hospital spokeswoman said Tuesday afternoon that no information was available on Justice.
Justice told officers that her ex-husband had shot her, and police were searching for that 33-year-old man. She was shot as she was walking back to her car after dropping off her two children, WRTV-TV reported.
Bailey said a 911 caller reported hearing about 10 gunshots outside the day care. Police haven’t yet said how many of those shots struck Justice.
Witness Reggie Dial told WTHR-TV he stayed put in his car when he heard the gunshots.
“I really didn’t know it was gunshots. I just heard, ’Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.’ I just sat in the car because it sounded like it was really close to me,” Dial told the station.
Following the shooting, parents and guardians were called to pick up their children at the center, Bailey said.
Lolita Robinson, 40, of Indianapolis, told The Indianapolis Star she raced to the center to pick up her 6-year-old niece after seeing television coverage of the shooting. Robinson said her niece’s mother is out of town for work.
“I had to go make sure my baby girl right here was OK and safe,” Robinson said. “I’m sorry this bad thing has happened at her day care.”
The Star reported that court records show that last week a Marion Superior Court judge awarded sole custody of the couple’s 6-year-old daughter to Justice’s husband.
Court records show that the couple had a tumultuous relationship dating back to at least 2007.
In June 2008, while staying at a domestic violence shelter, Justice filed a complaint saying her husband had physically abused her for several months. An Indianapolis police report said Justice told police her husband “stated to her that he would kill her and her daughter if she leaves him.”
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