Popular holiday shopping district sees crime fall
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – IMPD crime statistics show one of Indy’s most popular shopping districts saw a drop in criminal activity during the holiday season.
Much of it was thanks to a special initiative designed by IMPD North District Commander Chris Bailey.
It was called Operation Holiday Helper. It ran from Black Friday through Christmas and was focused in the Castleton area along 82nd, 86th, and 96th streets as well as the Glendale area along Keystone Avenue.
“You’ll see (officers) on bikes, you’ll see them on foot, you’ll see them in police cars, and then there will be times that you will not see them,” said Commander Bailey.
It was his message to shoppers and warning to any other person venturing through Indy’s north side for the wrong reasons.
“People would look in and see the packages and maybe break into the car and take the things,” said shopper Linda Smith from Avon.
What she described was just one of the many crimes IMPD was determined to stop as thousands of people flooded the area during the peak of the holiday shopping season.
The plan for Operation Holiday Helper was to have officers increase the number of drivers they would pull over. The intent wasn’t to write more tickets, but to present a deterrent to criminals while also possibly catching some who had recently committed a crime.
Officers also canvassed parking lots for stores, malls, and restaurants in marked and unmarked cars.
According to crime data presented by IMPD, there were 79 reported thefts from vehicles in 2014 between Black Friday and Christmas in the targeted area. But during that same time period under Holiday Helper, there were only 25 reports.
In 2014, there were 27 shoplifting reports. During Holiday Helper there were 20. In 2014, there were three armed robberies but zero during Holiday Helper.
“Makes me think that the police are doing a good job when they’re with extra patrols,” said Smith’s husband Elwood.
The numbers make it seem like IMPD’s plan had a positive impact, but Commander Bailey didn’t want to take all of the credit. He said shoppers are doing a better job of keeping their belongings secure.
“If we put (items) back in the car we try to conceal it some way,” Smith said.
Besides patrolling parking lots to search for criminals, officers also individually checked on vehicles.They would then put a flyer on the windshield and mark it to show whether or not the driver left items in plain view or if they found the car was unlocked.
Commander Bailey felt educating people was an important element in making sure they weren’t victimized.
One crime that did see an increase from 2014 was vehicle thefts. There was only one in 2014 but four in 2015.
Commander Bailey attributed the thefts to one isolated incident in which all of the vehicles were stolen from the same parking lot of a fitness center in the Glendale area.
