INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – An east side shooting ending with a woman dead has joined a troubling trend of increasingly dangerous domestic violence incidents. 

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department believes 19-year-old Lanya Anderson was shot by her boyfriend following an argument at the Amber Woods Apartments. She died at the hospital Friday morning. 

Police have not identified Anderson’s boyfriend or announced his arrest.

The number of intimate partner cases handled by IMPD is largely the same as last year, an average of 15.8 per day in 2025 compared to 16.8 daily cases last year, but advocates say these incidents have become increasingly lethal. 

“The violence that we are seeing is more dangerous,” said Caryn Burton, homicide reduction strategies coordinator at the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV). 

One of the primary factors is access to guns.

“The disproportionate rate of firearm homicide when we’re talking about domestic violence is massive,” Burton said.

ICADV’s 2024 domestic violence fatalities report tracked 83 domestic violence deaths across the state. Of the 83 deaths, 73% involved firearms. 

While Indiana’s “Red Flag Law” (the Indiana Jake Laird Law) allows police to remove a firearm from someone deemed dangerous, Burton said it often goes unused. 

IMPD has seen a 26% drop in the number of total criminal homicides in 2025 compared to the same time last year (93 in 2025 vs. 127 YTD in 2024), but Burton believes the number of domestic violence homicides across Indiana is largely holding steady. 

“We have red flag laws. We need to enforce them,” Burton said. “And we need to empower officers and prosecutors to use the laws as they were written to be exercised.”

A report the Bureau of Justice Statistics released in 2022 found the percentage of females murdered by an intimate partner is five times higher than the percentage of males. 

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7. Call 800.799.SAFE (7233), test “START” to 88788, or find more information online.

About The Author

See author's posts