FILE-A police officer pulls police tape after a shooting incident. (Photo by Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
A house cleaner was fatally shot after she reportedly arrived at the wrong address of a home in Indiana.
María Florinda Ríos Pérez de Velásquez was shot on Nov. 5 after she and her husband, Mauricio Velázquez, arrived at the wrong residence for a cleaning job in Whitestown, Indiana, the Indianapolis Star reported.
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The Whitestown Metropolitan Police Department wrote on its official Facebook page that this is an active and ongoing investigation into the shooting and that they are working with the Boone County Prosecutor’s Office but have not provided the identity of the shooter or additional details on the case.
Rudy Ríos Pérez, the victim’s brother, told The New York Times that his sister, a mother of four children, immigrated with her husband to the United States from Guatemala a few years ago.
What happened in the Indiana shooting incident?
Dig deeper:
On Nov. 5, officers with the Whitestown Metropolitan Police Department responded to a 911 call of a "possible" residential entry in progress at a home in Whitestown, Indiana.
According to the Whitestown Metropolitan Police Department’s Facebook page, officers found a woman with a gunshot wound, later identified as María Florinda Ríos Pérez de Velásquez, and a man, on the front porch of a home.
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Police noted that they later determined that the individuals attempting to enter the home were members of a cleaning crew who had mistakenly arrived at the wrong address.
Officials told The New York Times that two residents were inside the home that morning when the cleaners arrived, and they thought their home was being broken into and called 911. Minutes later, one of the residents fired a gunshot from inside the home, hitting and killing Velásquez.
Indiana gun laws
Big picture view:
Indiana has self-defense rights under laws commonly known as "stand your ground" laws or, in the home, laws based on the "castle doctrine."
According to the Indiana General Assembly’s website, the law states that an individual can use reasonable force, including deadly force, if the person reasonably believes that is necessary to stop an intruder. In those cases, it is not required that the individual must attempt to move away.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by the Indianapolis Star, The New York Times, the Whitestown Metropolitan Police Department, and the Indiana General Assembly’s website. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.