INDIANAPOLIS — An Indianapolis father is taking matters into his own hands to protect his family from the ongoing gun violence across Indianapolis.
Terelle Bradley says he's seen too many "close calls" in his community.
He has posted big signs with a stark message, hoping to quell the gunfire that puts his family and others at risk.
“I just wish gun violence would stop here around Indianapolis," said Bradley, a husband and father. "Innocent people are getting hurt.”
For months, Bradley has worried those people could be his own family, after someone shot up his house in the 1900 block of Lawrence Street in March.
“I have a two-year-old daughter and she could have been laying in her bed ,and you know them bullets could have come through and hit her, but luckily, it didn’t,” Bradley said.
Bradley and his family had only been living in the house a few months when the shooting happened. They learned from neighbors it wasn’t the first time and that someone had shot at the house.
According to IMPD, there were reports of shots fired at the same house in 2019 and 2020. No one was injured during those incidents, and Bradley wants to keep it that way.
That’s why he hung up two signs. The message says it all.
“New home owners. Old owners moved out. Do not shoot my house. Kids live here.”
For Bradley, the message seemed all the more necessary after last week, when a stray bullet hit and killed 12-year old Dayshawn Bills as he played video games inside his grandma’s house.
“A little kid that hasn’t really got to live his full life because of the, I wanna say, the selfish acts of others,” Bradley lamented.
Months later, you can still see the bullet holes in the windows from the shooting in March, a reminder, Bradley said, of why he’s now got security cameras and the signs. It’s all part of his job he says of being a husband and father.
“To protect and serve the family,” Bradley said. “I take that pretty seriously, honestly."
And with no gunfire near his house since March, Bradley prays the signs are working.
“I think the signs may be doing the job. It shouldn’t happen again. Hopefully, it doesn’t happen again," he said.