Granger mass shooting: Investigators say no tips have come in, 300-500 people present

GRANGER, Ind. --- St. Joseph County Metro Homicide is still looking for those responsible in the mass shooting at Heritage Square in Granger Sunday morning.

Mishawaka police released a statement Wednesday that there was a contract between a promoter who put on the event and that the contract did require that the parties hire law enforcement to keep an eye on the party, which did not happen.

Investigators said not a single Crime Stoppers tip has come in and people are not coming forward.

“If this was your loved one, and it could be tomorrow w if these things continue to happen…wherever people are gathering, people are shooting,” St. Joseph Metro Homicide Commander Mike Grzegorek said. “It can happen to anyone and a family has lost a loved one, we’ve got other people that are injured. If this were your family, would you want somebody coming forward and helping? Obviously, we all do. We want justice, and that’s what we’re here for. We speak for those victims and our job is to try and solve this case to get an arrest and conviction so these things stop happening.”

The shooting killed Victor Anthwan Kyle, Jr., 26, and injured four others. Investigators said one person also suffered injuries from flying glass.

It is estimated between 300-500 people were in the parking lot after the advertised Juneteenth celebration hosted at Heavenly Goat Brewing Company ended around 3 a.m., according to investigators.

“I want everybody to think that if this was your loved one who was deceased or who was injured in this, Would you want people to come forward? Of course you would,” Grzegorek said. “And we want them to come forward as well.”

CMHU said there is no reason to believe at this point that anything happened inside the bar, but that all three parking lots of Toscana Park were full of cars.

“There’s three different lots. Those lots, from what we understand, every car space was filled,” St. Joseph Metro Homicide Assistant Commander Dave Wells. “And people were everywhere, so there’s hundreds of people out there. Estimates are anywhere between 80 and 100 rounds were fired out there. We’re incredibly lucky that weren’t 10 people killed out there.”

Evidence showed among those rounds, a caliber belonging to a rifle, according to investigators.

“Unfortunately, with that many people out there at the time, we have not had a lot of people coming forward,” Grzegorek said. “We’ve pretty much had to look for everybody, other than the living victims.”

Investigators estimated they have interviewed about 20 people, just a fraction of the crowd.

“To make it worse, a lot of those people that were interviewed were at the scene still at the scene,” Wells said. “Either their cars were hit and they were wondering about getting their cars back so we interviewed them at that time.”

“I mean for us to only have found 20 people out of 300-500 is sad in my opinion, that more people aren’t coming forward going this is wrong, we have to stop this,” Grzegorek said. “This has to change and the only way we do that is by standing up.”

The investigation coming on the heels of the two-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Kelly’s Pub, taking the life of Brandon Williams and leaving 11 others injured. The person responsible in the Kelly’s Pub shooting is still on the loose.

Investigators hope people will step up and come forward, sharing information or video taken Sunday night, so that Michiana can get answers.

“It’s easier on us to try and figure out who the shooter is when it’s one out of four people,” Wells said. “One out of 400, things get really difficult.”

“It may mean nothing to you, it may mean a lot to us in the investigation and just identifying people who are out there so that we can find out where they were, what they saw, what they heard,” Grzegorek said. “All of that matters.”

Investigators asked for patience in processing all of the evidence and are actively looking for more information in this case.

If you know anything about what happened, call CMHU (574) 235-5009 or Michiana Crime Stoppers at 574-288-STOP.