A person was found with gunshot wounds Sunday morning at 2851 North Shadeland Avenue on Indianapolis's east side, and police say the victim is in critical condition. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department responded to reports of a person shot and is now investigating the circumstances that led to the shooting.
The address is a Welcome Inn hotel located just south of East 30th Street in Warren Township, according to WTHR. As WISH-TV first reported, IMPD found the person in critical condition and said it would provide updates as they become available. No arrests have been announced, and investigators have not released details about a possible suspect or motive.
A Hotel With a Violent Past
This is not the first time the property has been the scene of major gun violence. In October 2021, the same address was the site of a fatal double shooting that left two men dead and a third victim wounded, per the earlier WTHR report, with IMPD officers responding to that incident late at night. The hotel operated under the Motel 6 brand at the time of that shooting.
The location falls within IMPD's East District, which is headquartered nearby at 201 North Shadeland Avenue and staffs roughly 200 officers covering eastern Marion County, according to city records. The station's proximity to Sunday's shooting underscores how concentrated violent crime calls have remained in this stretch of the east side even as officers are based just blocks away.
Part of a Broader, Uneven Trend
Indianapolis has seen a significant drop in homicides in recent years. Criminal homicides fell to 133 in 2025, a nearly 45 percent decline from the city's record peak of 241 homicides in 2021, per WFYI. But non-fatal shootings, like the one reported Sunday, remain a persistent problem, and clearance rates on the city's most violent crimes continue to lag. Four out of every five homicides in Indianapolis remained unsolved through the first four months of 2026, according to IMPD statistics reported by Fox 59.
A gun violence study conducted by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform in partnership with IMPD found 521 non-fatal injury shootings involving 813 unique victims or suspects over a single 12-month study period, illustrating how frequently shootings like Sunday's occur without always turning fatal. An industry analysis published by Omnilert in April found that IMPD has operated with 200 to 300 officers below its authorized staffing capacity, a shortfall that contributes to emergency response times exceeding department targets across all six of the city's police districts.
Recent East Side Violence
Sunday's shooting adds to a string of violent incidents on Indianapolis's east side in recent months. Hoodline previously reported on an east side shootout that led to a murder charge just two days earlier, as well as a critical shooting near 21st Street in March and another that left a teen girl wounded near 13th and Rural Streets earlier this month.
Anyone with information about Sunday's shooting is asked to contact Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-TIPS (8477), which offers cash rewards of up to $1,000 for tips leading to a felony arrest in violent crime cases. Tips can also be submitted through the P3 Tips mobile application. IMPD has not said whether surveillance video captured the incident, and the current condition of the victim beyond critical has not been released.
