'It's heartbreaking.' Purdue Poly junior shot, killed was basketball player, entrepreneur.

James Johnson III had a knack for making things look easy. He would walk into a gym, at 5-10 and wearing a shirt and tie and dress shoes, and dunk. When it came time to run the mile in the preseason with his Purdue Poly team, Johnson did not want to get his basketball shoes wet on a rainy day.

He ran it in Crocs. In under 6 minutes.

Johnson was a shining star away from the basketball court and track, too. He was an entrepreneurial spirit, starting his own business to provide fruit to parts of the city that were underserved. He had an internship last summer at Eli Lilly and had solidified plans just last week to work as a lifeguard this summer for Indy Parks and Recreation.

“He was amazing, man,” his father James Johnson II said. “He could do anything. He could dunk a basketball, he was fast and so smart. Everything was easy for him.”

His father paused, unable to hold back the tears. His son, Johnson III, was shot and killed Saturday night in an Irvington neighborhood. Johnson III, 17, was rushed from the 5600 block of Lowell Avenue to Riley Hospital, where he died shortly after arriving.

Johnson III is survived by his father, Johnson II, mother La’Toya Martin, and younger sisters Jasmine Johnson and Jayla Johnson. Jasmine is a sophomore at Tech and Jayla a seventh grader at Little Flower Catholic School.

Josh Bowling, the athletic director at Purdue Poly, has known Johnson II since he was in elementary school. Bowling was just out of college and working as a lifeguard in the 1990s at Brookside Park, where Johnson II and his friends were regulars. Bowling had been celebrating Purdue Poly’s girls basketball sectional championship Saturday night at Speedway with a postgame team party at Big Woods in Speedway.

He was almost home when he received an alarming text from Johnson II that something terrible occurred to James.

“He was a kid who was involved in everything,” Bowling said. “He was in our career leadership program and had a lot going on. He was a good kid, never really in trouble at all. I got to yell at him sometimes, but he always had an angle on things. He was always coming up with new ideas and I’d be like, ‘OK James, but focus on your algebra class too.’

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department has not released any other details on the shooting. Johnson II said he had recently talked with his son about guns and steering clear of trouble.

“He had some friends that had guns,” Johnson II said. “By looking through his phone I knew that. We talked about staying around the correct people and talked about how life could change if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Johnson III was starting on the junior varsity team for Purdue Poly and saw some time on the varsity team, which is 14-6 and has eight seniors. Johnson, who averaged 2.5 points in four varsity games, was expected to have a bigger role next season as a senior.

“James was a kid you wanted to see every day in practice because you wanted to be around him,” Purdue Poly coach Aaron Story said. “His personality and smile, even when you were yelling at him about something, you were like, ‘That’s a great young man.’ Everybody wanted someone like James on their team. He had a positive spirit about him, a quiet charisma that translated to everything in his life.”

Purdue Poly is scheduled to play its next game Tuesday at Howe against Thrival Indy Academy.

“I was with the team for a little bit Sunday and at school (Monday),” Story said. “It’s been a heavy week already, for sure. They are athletes and some are going to want to play and some are going to grieve in a different way. We’re taking it one day at a time.”

Johnson’s parents were both 2001 Tech graduates and standout athletes — his father in football and baseball and his mother in track and field. James had that athleticism to him, too, though it was his business sense and people skills that was going to set him up for future success.

The “Fruit Man” idea started when his father took a trip to Los Angeles and brought the idea back to James. He took it and ran with it as a 15-year-old. “He immediately had five or six places in different neighborhoods,” his father said.

In an interview with WRTV in September of 2021, Johnson III said he hoped it was just the beginning. “Really, I want to own my own business and be an entrepreneur,” he said. “Just work for myself.”

“He was an all-round good person,” Johnson II said. “A smart, funny guy that everybody liked. He had a good spirit about him that would brighten everybody up.”

Johnson III turned 17 on Jan. 7. His father said the family was still working on the details for funeral services.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Story said. “Guns in our city are too common. Too many of our kids are impacted.”

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy teen James Johnson III shot, killed was entrepreneur, basketball player