Girl dies, brother injured after being hit by car in Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS – A motorist who police say fell asleep at the wheel struck two Somali siblings who had been in the U.S. a week, killing one of them.\nShukri Mohamed Ibrahim, 9, was pronounced dead at the scene Tuesday. Her brother, Hassan Mohamed Ibrahim, 14, was in critical condition Wednesday at Methodist Hospital.\nThe boy was riding a bicycle and his sister was on foot behind him along a city street, police said.\nThe children’s family – a father, mother and five children – had moved to Indianapolis last week. They came through a refugee program called the Exodus Project that relocates people out of Somalia, which has been wracked by nearly two decades of civil strife, and other areas around the world.\n“The mother was wailing in the street,” said Lori Wells, who stopped at the accident scene.\nIndianapolis Metropolitan Police said Margaret Graves, 42, apparently fell asleep before her car crossed two lanes of traffic, striking the children.\nLt. Douglas Scheffel said investigators do not anticipate that Graves, who was driving with her two children, will be charged because there were no signs of criminal intent. A spokesman for Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said his office had not received the police report.\nScheffel said the children’s parents heard the sound of the crash from their nearby home and ran outside to find their children and the smashed pink bike, which was thrown by the impact into the grass outside a school playground.\nThe family had been living for a week in a house owned by First Meridian Heights Presbyterian Church, said the Rev. Curtis Page. The church of about 400 members makes houses available to families in the Exodus Project for six months at a time until adults get jobs and children are enrolled in school, he said.\nMark Cassini, executive director of the Exodus Project, said the family had just arrived from Kenya, where they had been in a refugee camp for 14 years.\nThe project, supported by community groups, universities and churches, has been active since 1980. The group brings about 200 to 250 people a year from across the world to central Indiana, he said. He said about 100 Somali families live in Indianapolis.