About a month ago, 31-year-old Adam Sykes was shot and killed by 24-year-old Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department cop Grant Snyder, near the Speedway gas station at the corner of State Ave. and E. Washington St. There has been relatively scant coverage of the incident and what led up to the death of Sykes, the father of an 8-year-old child undergoing treatment for Leukemia. The major news outlets covered the story mainly from the perspective of IMPD. Sykes’ family and community are gathering their own information about what led up to the shooting.
Sykes’ mother Nikki Schumpert said, “my 8-year-old granddaughter…now cries everyday over not understanding why her daddy had to die.”
Sykes is the city’s first person killed by a cop in 2025. In 2024, there were 17 officer-involved shootings resulting in 10 people killed and, in 2023, there were 18 officer-involved shootings resulting in 11 deaths. Here’s what we know happened that night based on reporting.
What the cops said happened
According to the police narrative distributed through Fox 59, on Feb. 25 at 2:15 am a woman went inside the Speedway seeking help after a group of men attacked her. The worker inside called 911 to get her help. According to IMPD reports, Snyder saw Adam Sykes at the gas station. Instead of helping the woman, Snyder went after Sykes based on his belief that Sykes had an active warrant for his arrest.
After Snyder approached him, Sykes stated, “I don’t have to talk to you.” Sykes distanced himself from Snyder by walking away, heading north on State Ave., although Snyder pursued him.
The death and the lack of answers and transparency prompted Sykes’ family and community to start looking for answers. All major news outlets obtained a photograph of the alleged weapon Sykes was carrying the night of his death.
According to IMPD Chief Chris Bailey, Snyder pursued and deployed a taser on Sykes, causing Sykes to fall to the ground. IMPD alleged that a gun fell out of Sykes’ pocket, prompting Snyder to withdraw his taser, draw his gun, and fired on Sykes several times, resulting in his death at the 120 block of State Ave. Sykes’ death was ruled a homicide by the county coroners.
Although Bailey said that when “more information becomes available, we’ll share it when it’s appropriate,” no further information has been made available as of this article’s publication. Officers were reported to have active body cameras on during the incident, yet they have not been shown to the family or released to the public. Derek R. Ford, a professor and concerned community member, told the Indianapolis Liberator, “There is so much confusion around how this shooting happened. We cannot rely just on the cops to investigate themselves.”
What the family found out
Sykes’ mother, Nikki Schumpert, is left on her own to do an independent investigation. The Indianapolis Liberator is an independent news outlet practicing objective reporting from the side of the community. This reporter accompanied Schumpert in her outreach efforts to gather information on who Adam was and more details in what happened that night. Schumpert stated IMPD did not contact her until a week after Sykes’ death. Schumpert and the public have not seen the unedited police body camera footage as of the publication of this article. Schumpert is determined to find answers because “I couldn’t just minimize my feelings,” she said in an exclusive interview with the Liberator.
Schumpert and her family went to the Speedway to ask people if they had any information on what happened that night. Many people recognized Adam and affectionately called him AJ. Many community members said he was a “cool dude” who did not deserve to be gunned down by IMPD. Schumpert got in contact with Sykes’ girlfriend who said he was trying to help the woman that night. She also made it clear that IMPD cops Snyder and another with the last name Burke had a history of constantly harassing Sykes.
Many in the community noted that Sykes struggled with addiction. According to statistics, 80% of Indiana employers have reported prescription drug misuse by their employees. 44.1% of Hoosiers are reported to have excessive alcohol-use. Those in the neighborhood spoke highly of his character as a visible member of the near East side community.
Bailey expressed his “heartfelt sympathies to this person’s family. I also want to share my concern with the officers involved in this, and that we keep them all in our thoughts.”
However, that offered little consolation to Schumpert, who told the Liberator that “the cop gets to live while my son is dead and his daughter calls me on the phone at night crying that she misses her dad.”
The people’s demands
According to Ford, the current demands of Adam’s community and the Party for Socialism and Liberation are as follows:
- Release the unedited body camera footage of what happened that night.
- Fire Grant Snyder and charge him with the murder of Sykes.
“We need everyone to pay attention to this case and sign the petition to get justice. We have to keep a spotlight on them to let them know we’re watching,” Ford said. Schumpert and her legal team have a meeting with IMPD to schedule a viewing of the unedited body camera footage of the night of Sykes’ death.
“It is absurd to put a grieving mother through meeting after meeting instead of just releasing the footage. The IMPD is stalling while they get their stories straight, because they protect their own at all costs.” Ford referenced Douglas Correll, who shot Gary Harrell, or Baby Gee, in August 2023 in the back and killed him. Correll was previously involved in a “racist attack on a Black man, for which the city of Indianapolis paid $380,000 of our taxes to keep Correll patrolling our streets.”
Schumpert stated despite losing her son, “I want Adam to be the first and only victim of IMPD for the year.” Why is she so driven?
“My motivation [to fight] is inspired by several factors. Seeing my son in that casket before his time pushes me to fight for justice and change. As my son joined the long list of African Americans such as George Floyd, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Indiana’s own Michael Taylor and more are murdered by police who are supposed to serve and protect but instead they determine when our lives need to have an expiration date… And lastly I felt my son left me a message upon his death he had on a bracelet that said Isiah 54:17 which is ‘No weapon formed against me shall prosper.’”
If you have any information on the IMPD shooting of Adam Sykes, please call our tip line at 317-721-3789.
Featured photo: Adam Sykes’ obituary. Photo courtesy of the Sykes family.