Boy, 16, shot to death in front of father while selling Xbox to person he met over app

GARY, Ind. (Sun-Times Media Wire) - A teenage boy was fatally shot during a robbery Wednesday in northwest Indiana.

Officers were dispatched at 6:05 p.m. for reports of shots fired in near 51st Avenue and Maryland Street in Gary, Indiana, according to a statement from Gary police.

Investigators learned that 16-year-old Johnny Peluyera of Merrillville, Indiana, had come to Gary with his father to sell an Xbox to someone they contacted through an online sales app, police and the Lake County coroner’s office said. When they arrived, two males robbed them.

Peluyera was sitting in the front passenger seat of a vehicle when he was shot during the robbery, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The coroner’s office determined he died from the gunshot wound and his death was ruled a homicide.

His father, who was driving the vehicle, was not injured in the shooting, according to police.

The suspects were described as black males in their late teens or early 20s wearing basketball shorts, police said. One wore a black hoodie, while the other wore a gray hoodie.

Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Mike Equihua of the Lake/Gary Metro Homicide Unit at 219-755-3852 or the crime tip line at 866-274-6347.