UPDATE (03/13/2023): Greenwood police announced on Monday that they have arrested 25-year-old Greenwood resident Marco Antonio Gonzalez for his alleged role in the incident.
According to GPD, Gonzalez has been charged with murder and is being held at the Johnson County Jail.
Gonzalez’s booking photo, provided by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, can be seen to the right.
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GREENWOOD, Ind. — Authorities in Greenwood are responding after a man was shot and killed outside of a local strip mall.
Greenwood Police Department crews were called around 9:20 p.m. Wednesday to a strip mall on E. County Line Road B. near Emerson Avenue for a person shot outside.
Upon arrival, GPD crews found 52-year-old Timothy A. Sannito suffering from a gunshot wound on the ground in the Ale Emporium parking lot. Sannito, GPD said, was alive but unresponsive. He died at a local hospital on Thursday morning.
GPD said that a witness on scene told officers that two men were in an argument in the parking lot when one man pulled out a gun and shot Sannito.
The shooter, GPD said, apparently then drove northbound away from the scene in an SUV.
Sannito’s family said he was a engineer and described him as a kind man. They say he was shot twice in the head and once in the back.
Late this afternoon, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita reached out to FOX 59 and said he and Sannito went to high school together and have been friends ever since.
Rokita said Sannito was leaving a work meeting at the restaurant when he was killed.
While he has no official role in the police investigation, Rokita says based on what he knows about his friend he said it’s hard to believe he would be in any kind of fight.
“He’s not a fighter,” Rokita said. “The family is just torn up that people are going around saying he got into a fight. I mean if he was fighting, he was fighting for his life.”
Greenwood Police admit the shooting happened in an area that doesn’t normally witness violence.
Logan Brown has lived in Greenwood for nearly two decades and works in the strip mall where the killing happened.
“I think it just really goes to show that you have to be aware of your surroundings and not take anything for granted,” Brown said. “Obviously it happens but you’re not really aware of it and when it happens so close to you then you’re more aware of it.”
Deborah Zoch has lunch with a friends several times a month at the restaurant and said she saw the news of what happened early Thursday morning.
“I texted my friend that I meet here all the time and I said ‘my God there’s no more places to go,'” Zoch recounted.
She said it’s a sad reality to see people solving their problems this way.
“Let’s go all the way back to lack of parental control, the lack of teaching the values that kids used to be taught,” Zoch said. “And let’s throw in guns that anybody can get on the corner. Horrible combination.”
GPD detectives are now reviewing security footage from the area and interviewing witnesses to try and determine a suspect.
“Obviously, this isn’t an area that is used to getting a heavy amount of crime and violence,” said Greenwood Police Chief James Ison. “So how troubling is it that you know, we can see the parking lots fairly populated? It’s a Wednesday evening. How troubling is it that we have this type of incident occurring here in Greenwood?”
Despite the shooting happening in a public place, police do not believe there is a threat to the public.
