Si.com | Chris Beaty
A friend of former Indiana University football player Chris Beaty is offering a hundred thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of anyone involved in his fatal May 30 shooting.
Chris Beaty had a lot of friends. Good friends. He was a popular businessman who was so active in the community that they dubbed him “Mr. Indianapolis.”
On Saturday, May 30, 2020, Beaty received a call from his best friend, Brandon Mosley, with whom he spoke daily, Sports Illustrated reported.
Beaty told Mosley he was staying inside and warned his friend to be careful because of the protests. Later that night, Mosley tried twice to reach Beaty to no avail.
Police received a report of shots fired outside Beaty’s apartment and arrived to find an unidentified black man shot dead with no identification.
On Sunday, still unable to reach his best friend, Mosley asked a few friends to go to Beaty’s apartment. The door was unlocked. They walked in and found the two phones he used sitting next to his wallet.
They called police, but police had no reports of anyone under Beaty’s name. They called hospitals and could not locate him there, either.
As rioting and looting were occurring in downtown Indianapolis as protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and police treatment and killings of black Americans in general, two women were being mugged right outside Beaty’s apartment at the intersection of Talbott and Vermont streets.
Beaty’s sister finally got a call from the hospital saying they had identified a deceased man as 38-year-old Chris Beaty through his fingerprints.
Not satisfied with police efforts, Beaty’s friends took matters into their own hands. Mosley and a number of Chris’ friends set about trying to figure out what had happened to cause his death. They combed the neighborhood and spotted a shell casing at Vermont Street.
Ultimately, they found three spent shell casings on the afternoon following the shooting. They called 911.
Apparently, acting as a Good Samaritan, Beaty went out to help.
Police later told Beaty’s friends that when officers arrived, they found a man who “died trying to protect two women who were getting their purses snatched.”
“These were not protesters, they were just bad guys out there robbing people,” Mosley told Sports Illustrated, “and they killed my best friend.”
Beaty’s friends continued to complain that the police weren’t doing enough to try to solve the case. That’s when Ryan Grote stepped up.
“There was no forensic analysis,” another friend, Ryan Grote told the IndyStar. “My friends found shell casings.
“There was a guy scrubbing his blood up with a Brillo pad the next day,” Grote said, referring to the loss of critical evidence.
A representative from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department defended its actions in an interview with the IndyStar.
“We handled the tragic and untimely death of Chris Beaty with the same professionalism and standard operating procedures that we employ in every homicide,” the spokesperson said.
“Despite the aggression and violence that surrounded investigating detectives during the riot, we protected the crime scene and recovered as much evidence as we were made aware of.”
“Not unlike every homicide investigated outside of an active riot, we canvassed the area for witnesses or anyone who may have had information.”
A hundred thousand dollars reward was offered.
Ryan Grote, a sales executive for an Italy-based automotive technology company, says he has the resources to offer a $100,000 reward and to make good on the offer.
Grote said he is putting up his own money to help find Beaty’s killer because he doesn’t believe the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department made a significant effort to preserve and analyze the crime scene, the IndyStar reported.
“I’m angry about it. I have the means to do it,” Grote said, “and I’m going to find out who did this and they’re going to go to jail.”
Ryan Grote is urging anyone with any information related to the death of Chris Beaty to contact him through his Facebook profile.
The Indiana Metropolitan to Police Department said: “We implore the public to please work with IMPD Homicide Detectives as they continue to actively investigate this case.”
They can be contacted via phone calls to the department’s homicide unit at 317-327-3475. The Crime Stoppers anonymous tip line is 317-262-8477.
