Just hours after T’yon Horston’s death Thursday afternoon, dozens of elected officials, activists and neighbors stood in an empty lot on the street where the 11-year-old was shot. Some who were present Friday urged, some pleaded, some even prayed that T’yon’s death would be the last due to gun violence in the city.
“We’re losing our kids in a way that we just simply can’t” said South Bend Mayor James Mueller. “In this case an 11-year-old, a child, was taken too soon. That’s what these incidents do — they’re tearing our community apart.
T’yon was shot Thursday in the 600 block of North Johnson Street. Shotspotter alerts detected gunfire in the area just before 5 p.m. and arriving officers found the boy with gunshot wounds. Police say he later died in the hospital.
As of Friday, police have not made an arrest in the case, though officials say they have interviewed close to two dozen people about the shooting.
According to the South Bend school district T’yon was a 6th-grader at Jefferson Traditional Middle School.
The gathering saw multiple community leaders, including Lynn Coleman, Gladys Muhammad and 1st District council member Canneth Lee, speak about the need for residents to come together and to alert authorities if they’re aware of dangerous behavior.
“It’s not one person’s job to stop it,” said Muhammad, a longtime community activist and member of the South Bend Heritage Foundation. “These are our kids and they’re dying. And they’re shooting each other and we have to figure out how to stop it.”
As officials spoke, a few distraught neighbors shouted obscenities saying the city wasn’t doing enough to get dangerous people off the streets. Coleman, a longtime South Bend police officer, said there’s plenty of blame to go around, but what matters is how the community moves forward. At one point, Coleman turned to face his fellow community leaders and told them, “We’ve got work to do.”
An autopsy for T’yon was scheduled for Friday, but officials did not say what circumstances led up to the 11-year-old being shot. South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski said detectives have interviewed more than 20 people about the homicide and he feels confident his team can clear the case.
Ruszkowski said South Bend officers are often called to Johnson Street and the immediate vicinity and is one of the department’s focus areas. Ruszkowski did not say if investigators have identified anyone potentially involved in the shooting, but urged anyone with information to contact police.
T'yon’s death marks the eighth homicide in South Bend so far this year and the seventh involving a firearm. Police also reported that three more people were shot in 2022 than 2021 (124 compared to 121), though they say the overall number of incidents involving gun violence went down. Ruszkowski and Mueller have previously pointed to Indiana’s new permitless-carry law as a reason for the uptick in shooting victims over the past several months.
Police ask anyone with information about the homicide to call Michiana Crime Stoppers at 574-288-STOP and leave an anonymous tip.
