PUBLIC SAFETY

Killing in my neighborhood means end for wandering soul

A young man who fended for himself dies during a violent year in Indianapolis

Robert King
robert.king@indystar.com
Brian Crook

The young man killed last week in my neighborhood never had a chance.

He didn’t have a chance, people who have seen surveillance videos say, when his killer came out of the darkness from nowhere, firing his weapon before Brian Crook knew it was coming.

He didn’t have a chance, those who knew him say, when he was growing up — living for a time in a dumpster, sleeping in parks, stealing to eat. And now he’s a statistic.

In a violent year when it’s hard to keep an accurate count of Indy’s homicide total, Brian Crook’s slaying could easily get lost. He was the 107th body to turn up around the city this year. There have been seven more since he died a week ago.

For me and my neighbors in the vicinity of Ninth and Tecumseh streets, we won’t be forgetting his death anytime soon, even if we’re just learning his name. Crime is a fact of life in the city. Our neighborhood is plagued by petty thefts, prostitution and a couple of drug houses. But we’ve been fortunate, in my three years here; there hadn’t been a homicide near us. That changed last Friday.

People closest to the scene woke to the sound of gunshots at 5 a.m. Some saw the killer flee the area. Some saw the body on the ground, half in the street, half on the sidewalk. Some people had to cross police tape that morning to go to work. Others marched their kids out to their cars for school with the body still on the ground, in plain view.

My family and I live a few blocks away. We didn’t hear the shots. We didn’t see the body. But the word came to us quickly through text messages and social media. Hastily, I put on some clothes and walked a few blocks to the crime scene, partly as a journalist, partly as a concerned neighbor. I’ve never walked to a murder scene before.

Crime scene investigators process evidence at a slaying near 9th and Tecumseh streets on Indianapolis' east side on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. It was the city's 107th homicide of the year.

Police knew few details when they staged a media briefing in front of the house of a friend. It would be five days before they released the bare essentials about the victim. Name: Brian D. Crook. Race: White. Sex: Male. Age: 23.

I needed to know more. From the questions I kept getting from neighbors, I recognized they needed to know more, too.

In the past couple of days, after police released the name, I’ve had a chance to talk to people who knew Brian Dale Crook. And his story seems important because, I fear, there are more Brian Crooks on the streets of Indianapolis than we care to think about.

Brian was still a toddler when his father died in a fire. His mother struggled to care for him and his older brother. She did some time in jail, and so did Brian’s brother.

When Brian landed in foster care with Terry Blackburn, he had been living in a trash dumpster for a year and a half. He was about 13 years old then. Blackburn put him in school in Brownsburg, and a teacher quickly came back and said there was a problem.

“She said, ‘Brian is a thief,’” Blackburn said. “I said, ‘Yes, he is.’ They had great difficulty understanding that a kid that’s lived in a trash dumpster for over a year has a hard time not hoarding food or taking food.”

Blackburn noticed it soon after Brian came into his home and began taking food from the kitchen and hiding it in his room. When Brian began waiting for dinner, when he stopped hoarding food, Blackburn took that as major progress. And as Brian figured out he had regular meals coming, Blackburn saw the kid begin to emerge. “He was fun. He was jovial,” Blackburn said. “He had a girlfriend. He was just a typical teenage boy, just kind of silly about her.”

But Brian was restless. After being sent to a group home, he ran away.

Eventually, he stayed with cousins and with his grandmother and with his mother. But sometimes, between homes, family members would find him sleeping in a park. He did some stints in jail for cocaine possession and battery. And while in prison, he began acquiring a collection of tattoos, including one with the words “Hell raiser.” He’d heard that his long-lost father had those words inked on his body.

The body art was part of a persona that comes across in assorted Facebook photos that friends shared, including some with Brian holding a gun and flashing various hand gestures.

But Tony Roberts, an older cousin, said the tough guy look was something of a shield for Brian. Sit and talk with him for longer than five minutes, and Brian was more apt to talk about God and getting to heaven. He never went to church as a child but, somewhere along his way, he acquired an interest in spiritual things.

“He knew he wasn’t going to be here that long,” said Daysha Puckett, Roberts’ daughter and Brian’s cousin. “He told me he was here to guide people to God — that God put him here to guide others to God — others that’s going through things.”

In the days before his death, Brian asked Roberts and his wife about ways to get started on a career.

He’d spoken to Puckett about seeking out his father’s family in Tennessee. “He said, ‘I’m not doing nothing. I’m not getting nowhere. And I have nothing to do with my time other than things that could get me into trouble,’” she recalled.

She thought he was setting up for a change. Instead, he left his mother’s house that morning and took a walk in the dark through my neighborhood, where he had a friend. Why he was there and why he was killed are still unclear. Police haven’t said whether they have a suspect.

Today, a week after his death, his family will hold a memorial service. Some can’t help but wonder if, as tragic as his death was, Brian Crook might at last now have some peace.

“My faith tells me that he’s not suffering no more and he finally got the chance to express real peace and real happiness with no hunger, no homelessness,” Roberts said. “I pray that he’s found eternal peace.”

Call IndyStar reporter Robert King at (317) 444-6089. Follow him on Twitter: @RbtKing.

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