Chief Riggs, local pastors discuss IMPD diversity

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Troy Riggs held a meeting with a group of local pastors Wednesday afternoon. During the hour-long discussion, Riggs shared statistics on diversity within IMPD, police action shootings, and homicide statistics.

According to Riggs, so far in 2016,  28 of the 35 homicides in the city involve African Americans.

“That’s a troublesome number,” said Riggs.

He also shared information that from 2013-2016, 55 IMPD officers had to fire their guns, and that an average of 708 IMPD officers are attacked per year.

“I didn’t know the number of officers that have been assaulted as opposed to those involved in police action shootings,” said Pastor James Jackson of Fervent Prayer.

From 2000-2010, 118 African Americans joined IMPD, as opposed to 697 white recruits who joined the department during that same decade.

Chief Riggs asked for pastors to help the department recruit minorities to IMPD. He asked the pastors in attendance to search their congregation for those who will make great candidates to join the ranks.

In the end, the pastors were asked to be part of a clergy response team. The pastors are requested to calm tension at crime scenes and be of help when requested by the officers on the scene.

This meeting comes two days after a group of pastors held a news conference recommending implicit bias training for officers, a request for body cameras for IMPD officers, and recommendations for prosecutors, and IMPD to release police action shooting video within a 24 hour period to the public.

It’s unclear if the pastors and Riggs talked about the request during their closed door conversation.