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Four members of one family were killed in Indianapolis around 4:00 AM on January 24th. The victims include Kezzie Childs, 42, Raymond Childs Jr, 42, Elijah Childs, 18, and Rita Childs, 13. Kiara Hawkins, 19, and her unborn baby boy were also killed. Another teenage boy was found seriously wounded nearby. On Facebook, Hawkins says she was due to give birth on February 1st.
On the morning of January 25th, police announced that they apprehended a 17 year old, but they can not identify him because US law shields underage suspects. They will only say that the suspect is not the teenager who was found wounded.
Indianapolis saw a dramatic surge of violence in 2020, and 2021 is off to a very bad start. The city had 154 homicides in 2019 and 215 in 2020.
The Childs’ family children were part of a hip hop band called NuStreet. However, more recently, Elijah Childs was publishing violent gangster rap music under the name Savoe, and had videos on Youtube. His albums, Dreams to Nightmares and King of the Jungle, are for sale on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon.
A interview with Savoe on Youtube actually sounds pretty ominous. The interviewer flat out states that there are people who would like to commit violence against him because of his music. Savoe laughs and holds up a Krinkov style Kalashnikov rifle with no buttstock and two magazine taped together. However, the gun looks like it might be a prop and not an actual functional gun.
I should stress that we do not actually know the motive for the shooting, but the video clip above looks very bad.
Elijah Childs might be the father of the baby killed. Hawkins seems to insinuate this on her Facebook page.
He has several rap videos that are full of violent imagery and lyrics. They can be found on the “Jus Real Music” Youtube Channel.
