Felix Achoch came to America with a dream of playing professional soccer and of one day returning to his native Kenya to play on its national team.
Local coaches were certain the 21-year-old had a legitimate shot.
“Nobody could touch him,” said James Cormack, a local soccer manager and a mentor to Achoch. “He was unstoppable.”
Others noticed, too. Achoch’s game-changing play in Indianapolis amateur leagues had earned him two critical tryouts — one with the Kenyan Under-23 national team this summer, and another two weeks ago with the Indy Eleven soccer club, a professional team expected to make its debut next year.
But when it came time for the tryout, he didn’t show. “At first, I was very disappointed in him,” Cormack said. But Cormack sensed something was wrong. He called Achoch’s cellphone and wrote a message on his Facebook page, the only ways he knew to reach him.
Hours later, he received a return message on Facebook. Achoch was at Methodist Hospital. He had been severely beaten outside a Lafayette Square nightclub three days earlier. For the first few days, doctors thought he was going to make it. Then he suffered a stroke. He died the following day.
The death sent waves not only through the city’s soccer circles, but through Central Indiana’s growing African immigrant community — one group mourning the loss of a promising athlete and the other shocked at how abruptly Achoch’s dream came to an end. Both wonder whether police will find his killers.
“You don’t think, in America, things happen like this,” Achoch’s brother Foster Achoch said. “Nobody is supposed to die like this.”
Police called to an assault
At 2:20 a.m. on July 22, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers were called to Club Vision, a Lafayette Road bar commonly called Tadkaa Bar, to investigate a reported assault.
They found Achoch bleeding from his left ear but had trouble learning who he was. “The victim refused to speak to officers and would not even give his name,” a police report noted. Police said a bystander thought his name might be David. David was Achoch’s nickname.
His attackers were nowhere to be found.
The initial report, filed 26 minutes after police were called, said the officers spoke with a disc jockey who had heard from others that Achoch had been standing in line outside the bar and said “disrespectful things” to four or five other men, which led to a fight. Achoch, who also would not speak to medics, was sent to the hospital.
After he died, the Marion County coroner’s office ruled his death a homicide, and police began to investigate.
That day, the IMPD issued a release characterizing his involvement somewhat differently. After speaking with witnesses, police said Achoch had been inside the bar with others when a fight started and spilled outside into the parking lot. Detectives asked the public for any information about the incident.
Police had dealt with Achoch once before at the same bar. Early on May 4, police arrested him for battery, public intoxication and resisting law enforcement after he tried to flee authorities. An ex-girlfriend also had accused him of hitting her, according to an IMPD report.
Achoch denied the woman’s allegations. The 35-year-old woman has been named in 33 police reports since 2000 and had accused multiple men of hurting her in domestic disputes, batteries and assaults.
No charges were filed at the Marion County prosecutor’s office in relation to the case.
Now, IMPD spokesman Lt. Chris Bailey said detectives are continuing to interview witnesses and establish facts surrounding Achoch’s death. An arrest isn’t imminent, he said.
“None of us understand why”
Achoch’s friends and family were shocked when they heard what happened because they saw him as someone who wouldn’t get involved in a bar fight.
They say he was naturally shy, extremely good-natured, had a great sense of humor and an ability to open up over time.
“He was a quiet guy,” said Naaman Asikoye, Indianapolis, who knew Achoch and his family when they were in Kenya. “He didn’t show many signs of problems. I had never seen him in any trouble.”
Those traits were present even when he was at his most competitive, said Huss Sadri, his coach at the Indy Inter FC soccer team.
“Anyone that knew him will tell you that he was not a violent man, even on the field,” he said. “It’s just not in his character. None of us understand why this would have happened.”
Faced with mounting questions, both the soccer and African communities are looking for answers and trying to hold on to his memory.
Family members had two vigils for Achoch, which attracted dozens if not hundreds of people. Some of the 30,000 African immigrants in Central Indiana helped raise money for his funeral and to send his body back to Nairobi, Kenya, the city he left three years ago.
Another memorial service is scheduled at Stuart Mortuary at 16th and Illinois streets at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Future rallies will be planned, said Shola Ajiboye of the African Center, to try to keep the case in the public’s eye and ensure someone is pressing police to continue the investigation.
While he didn’t accuse authorities of mismanaging the case, Ajiboye said the more Central Indiana’s African immigrant community does “to ensure the necessary focus is put on this,” the better its chances of getting answers.
“There are a lot of questions in the community,” he said. “They want peace of mind.”
The services last week were just as important for members of the equally tight-knit soccer community, Cormack said.
“It was good just for everyone to get their grief out and be around like-minded people who wanted to find the people who did this,” he said.
What they admired most about Achoch was his competitive, team-building spirit.
Since joining his family in Indianapolis after playing soccer for a Kansas community college, Achoch had quickly attracted the attention of those who helped run amateur leagues in the city, including Sadri and Cormack.
His love of the sport made him willing to play whatever position asked of him, Cormack said. Most of the time, he said, that meant being a goal-scoring force, easily putting games out of reach with four- or five-goal performances, or turning games around with a quick spark off the bench.
Yet he was never one to take much credit for it, Sadri said. “He doesn’t like to be where the light shined over him.”
It was that spirit, that humility, Sadri said, that made Achoch an ideal candidate for Indy Eleven, the newly formed North American Soccer League professional team, a tier below the top league in the country.
That Achoch was getting so near to his dream made his death sting even more for his former coach, who paused more than once to hold back tears.
“He was reaching for the stars.”
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