INDIANAPOLIS — IMPD homicide detectives served 22-year-old Dorean Petty, of Indianapolis, with an arrest warrant for his alleged involvement in a 2022 homicide. Petty was in the Marion County Criminal Justice Center on unrelated charges when he was served on April 11, 2023.
He now faces charges of murder, robbery resulting in serious bodily injury and unlawful carrying of a handgun for his role in a deadly shooting during an alleged attempted robbery at a downtown gas station on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022.
In that incident,19-year-old Rodney Hanley was shot and died a short time later at IU Health-Methodist Hospital. Two other men were wounded.
According an arrest document, surveillance video showed Hanley and Petty, who were friends, entering the gas station together at midnight on Aug. 21 and approaching a man at the checkout counter. All three men were carrying guns, with Hanley and Petty holding theirs in view.
The arrest document says Hanley stood behind the man's left side, while Petty stood behind the man's right side. Hanley began speaking to the man at the counter, who pulled a gun from his waistband. When Hanley reached for the man's gun, he began shooting at Hanley and Petty, with Hanley shooting back.
Then, Hanley and Petty are shown leaving the store.
More surveillance video showed Hanley jogging south on Delaware Street before falling down. Petty was also seen in that video speaking on a cellphone near Hanley.
IMPD Downtown District officers quickly learned that a man walked into a nearby fire station on Fort Wayne Avenue with a gunshot wound from the same incident, and another man drove to Eskenazi Hospital, also with a gunshot wound sustained at the gas station.
Police interviewed the man at Eskenazi Hospital who gave them an account of his encounter with Hanley. The man admitted they exchanged gunfire and he drove himself to the hospital. He said he'd never seen Hanley or Petty before.
The third man's wounds to his back were superficial, according to police.
Detectives eventually identified Petty through the phone call he made after Hanley was shot and his familiarity with the station's clerk, who witnessed the shooting.
Police said Petty told them during a jailhouse interview in January that he threw away his gun shortly after the shooting, and that he was afraid to report his involvement in what happened since he could be charged with Hanley's murder.
Petty was formally charged Friday, April 12 and has a jury trail scheduled for July 24, 2023.
Anyone else with information about the incident should contact Detective Ronald Sayles at the IMPD Homicide Office at 317-327-3475 or email him at Ronald.Sayles@indy.gov.