INDIANAPOLIS — "I could be short one son," said Jamillah Radcliff. "I could be planning a funeral."
Radcliff is thanking God that's not the case after what happened this past Friday.
Radliff's 14-year-old son was staying with a friend at Cloverleaf Apartments on Indianapolis' west side. Radcliff said the friend's mom let the teens drive her car around the neighborhood.
"They rode around a couple times and that third time they rode around, the guys standing on the sidewalk didn't know who they were because the windows were very tinted and they just started shooting with no regards to anybody," Radcliff explained.
A short time later, Radcliff got the call her son had been shot.
"Man, it's scary. It is so scary," she said, starting to cry.
That sick feeling Radcliff got in her stomach when she first got the call was a feeling she's had before. Seven years ago, another son, who was just 13 at the time, was shot in the neck. He also survived. Now, seeing her son in a hospital, shot in the leg, felt like reliving the same nightmare, only with a different child.
"Out of four boys, you got two of them that's already been shot," said Radcliff.
She wonders if, as a mother, she'll ever be able to sleep again.
"I thank God. He's got us covered, but I don't want to get to where I have to bury one of my kids because of gun violence," Radcliff said.
She only has to look around to see she's not the only parent with that same fear and for some of them, those fears have come true.
"A lot of my friends are losing their kids. Every day I get on Facebook, somebody's lost their child," Radcliff said.
What's just as difficult to comprehend is that some of the perpetrators are kids themselves.
"How are these kids having access to these guns?" Radcliff asked. "It's like buying candy from a store now. Almost everybody has one."
Radcliff said her son does not.
"I always discuss with him about the guns like, 'Don't put your hand on a gun. You shouldn't have a gun. You don't need to be anywhere near a gun,'" Radcliff said.
Despite those conversations, Radcliff is again watching another teenage son heal from being shot. She prays it's the last time.
"I don't want it to be a next time. I don't want another one of those phone calls," she said.
Radcliff's son is now out of the hospital. IMPD is still investigating, but so far, there are no suspects in the case.