INDIANAPOLIS (WXIN) – Hollis Members was dressed in a black pinstriped suit, wearing a white shirt with an open collar, sitting in a chair in his eastside living room having just returned from the funeral home after making arrangements for the services for his daughter Brittany Marie.

“No one knows unless it happens what it feels like to lose a child,” he said. “My child was shot in her head at close range, and I [saw] brain matter on her hair. How you think that makes me feel?”

Brittany Members, 38, was standing at the front door of a two-story short-term rental on North Park Avenue in Indianapolis just before 1 a.m. on Sunday when someone tried to gain entry to her daughter’s after-prom party.
Brittany Members (Photo provided by family)
“I was told somebody came to that door with ski masks on and they tried to get in and she said, ‘You can’t get in, we don’t know you, you can’t come in,’ and he said, ‘So we can’t come in,’ and fired a shot point-blank to my baby’s head.”

Gunfire, chaos on video

Security video obtained by Nexstar’s WXIN/WTTV recorded the sounds of dozens of gunshots being fired in three volleys along the typically quiet block in the Meridian Kessler neighborhood.

The first volley came from the gunfire that fatally wounded Members at the front door.

Video from a camera mounted on the front porch of a nearby home showed a white vehicle slowly backing up the street with its headlights off.

When partygoers spilled into the streets to flee the scene, the white vehicle rolled forward again, and seconds later, there was a second round of gunfire.

Nearly a hundred police evidence markers on the scene located shell casings littering the ground. Bullet holes peppered the front of the house.

The third volley of gunfire erupted from people at the house firing back, armed with weapons that were displayed in a photograph Members had posted to Facebook earlier in the evening, showing at least three attendees armed with four firearms, two of them large semi-automatic rifles with banana clips.

Two other people were injured in the shooting.

“Well, Mr. McQuaid, I [saw] that picture on Facebook,” Hollis Members told WXIN/WTTV’s Russ McQuaid. “I [saw] that picture on Facebook, and as I stated, you know what I mean, these kids these days gonna have weapons. But they never should have had guns period. Period.”

That photograph was taken in the driveway, in front of decorations on the garage, and on a red carpet setting the scene for the after-prom party. The garage was also festooned with banners of Brittany’s daughter, the Crispus Attucks High School senior who was celebrating with her friends.

“They set everything up at the garage so after they came through and introduced themselves they went to the garage where they stood and took pictures and stuff, like the movies,”
the grandfather explained.

Searching for a motive

Homicide detectives with the Indianapolis Metro Police Department (IMPD) are still trying to determine what brought the masked gunman and his friends to the party.

“The word got out because everybody who was there was friends of theirs, they went to school with them, some of them had graduated, they came,” Members said. “A lot of family members there and unfortunately some people came and destroyed all that, destroyed our lives.”

Members said he was at the party earlier in the evening dropping off food, and warned his daughter to shut down the celebration early to avoid trouble.

He said he never saw any firearms.

“Everybody’s carrying guns, Mr. McQuaid, there’s no doubt about that,” Members said. “Some people, if they’re 18 or 21, they get to carry a gun without a license.”

Members said IMPD and his family need the support of witnesses in order to find his daughter’s killer.

“No one’s coming forward with any information to help to solve the crimes. They can only go by the information that they have but if someone comes forward and says, ‘Look, this person did this and this person did that,’ this would be a better city.”

Short-term rental, long-term problem

Two other people were wounded in the shooting at a short-term rental owned by a firm from Fort Wayne and booked by an agent in Castleton.

Neighbors told WXIN/WTTV that over the last 18 months they’ve noticed weekend visitors at the home as the property’s long-term rental prospects have fizzled.

”We’ve faced this situation the last few years with our short term rentals being a problem location,” said Tony Lopez, deputy director of the Office of Public Health and Safety.

The Bureau of Neighborhood Services advised WXIN/WTTV that the property was not registered with the city and the owners have 30 days to comply before penalties could potentially kick in.

Across the street, Brandi Mitchell needs to repair a bullet hole in her front window that resulted from the gun battle as partygoers fired back at their attackers.

As Saturday night wore on, she became increasingly worried about the size of the growing crowd at the big yellow house.

“When there’s a lot of people and [it] didn’t look like a lot of supervision, after those hours it could get a little scary.”

Pursuit of justice

When teens are involved in a shooting, invariably the question is asked, “Where were the parents?”

“So you’re going to hear us say those same things over and over again — parents, we need you to get involved,” said IMPD Chief Tanya Terry.

But at least on Sunday morning, there was one parent at the door — Brittany Members — trying to protect the kids in her care from armed intruders.

“As a father, I want justice. I want justice,” said Hollis Members, slumped in a leather chair, a fish tank oxygen pump gurgling in the background of our interview. “This is the second daughter I lost to gunfire. There’s nothing like losing a kid. Makes you feel all hurt and pain.”

Members’ other daughter, Sheena Grundy, died as the result of a murder-suicide at the hands of a man she was with in 2016.

Brittany and Sheena shared the same mother, and Brittany Members even identified herself as Brittany Grundy when she posted the photograph of the heavily armed friends attending her daughter’s party on Facebook hours before the shooting.

Members said though his daughter identified herself with the Grundy family, she did not associate with it.

A cousin, Richard Grundy, was the leader of a notorious Indianapolis drug gang a decade ago. He’s currently serving a federal prison sentence on a narcotics conviction. His own daughter died in an accidental shooting after he was incarcerated.

Several members of the Grundy crew have either been shot to death, wounded, arrested or imprisoned since his departure from the scene. An associate named Eric Butler, or L’il E, was recently shot at a tire store on the far east side.

While social media has been rife with rumors that Brittany Members’ murder could be part of a retaliation vendetta against the Grundy family and their associates, IMPD has not made that connection.

“A lot of things being posted,” said Members, his voice gravelly and worn down by grief. “A lot of people making speculations, talking about, you hear on the streets, and you wonder what they’re talking about. But then they come up with, ‘This is retaliation. This is retaliation from the Grundys,’ because Brittany from her page using the name Grundy. Brittany Grundy. And that’s it, and they think this has something to do with that, and it has nothing to do with that. This is something totally different.”

Anyone with information regarding the shooting should contact Crime Stoppers at (317) 262-TIPS (8477), and may qualify for a reward. Tips can be submitted anonymously.