IMPD declares downtown safety efforts over July 4 weekend a success
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Police are still investigating several shootings that happened over July 4 weekend.
Police say arrests from an incident downtown near the canal have already been made.
“While it was unfortunate, we did make several arrests that evening, so we had some shots fired,” Downtown District Commander Phil Burton said.
Two women were shot at the canal early Monday. Burton says Indiana State Capitol Police assisted them, but ultimately, officers had a successful weekend downtown. IMPD showed an extra force to discourage violent gun crime.
“Fortunately for us, we took a lot of illegal guns off the street. We had a lot of different resources that come through the department,” Burton said.
At least five people died in shootings across the city. On Friday, a 22-year-old was killed outside a business at 38th Street and Post Road. Then just a few hours later, a 34-year-old was shot to death at 30th Street and Sherman Drive.
“Even though we have the additional resources downtown assisting downtown with different big events it still doesn’t compromise other districts and what they need to have done on their particular district so they still will patrol, they’ll still have enough manpower in order to make sure that their district is safe,” Burton said. “But we did collaborate a lot with different units, different agencies including the state police, the state capital police, and sheriff’s office, and everyone actually just pulled together and made this past holiday weekend a successful weekend.”
On Saturday, a 65-year-old man was shot to death on the city’s northeast side following a separate shooting where a 22-year-old man was killed in a field behind apartments on Fox Harbour Drive. And on Sunday night, a man was shot and killed and a woman was injured near the Vue Luxury apartments.
- Man critically injured in shooting on northeast side
- 7 dead after violent holiday weekend in Marion County
- 5 killed in Indianapolis shootings during 4th of July weekend
- 1 dead, 1 injured in shooting at apartments near downtown
- Arrest made in shooting on city’s northeast side; 4th fatal shooting since Friday
“Unfortunately, the summer brings a heightened rise of homicides in our city, which we are disgusted in. We’re just very sick and tired of covering this kind of story,” Antonio Patton, founder of Men of Vision Empowering, said.
Patton says he’s disappointed and heartbroken for the families that lost their loved ones in the shootings.
“This is not a mayor or police situation. It’s our community. We have to take our community back. The police can only patrol so much. There’s only so many of them,” Patton said.
Burton says he will be meeting with representatives of bars downtown to help reduce crime and talk about B-link Indy, a new initiative that uses technology to link personal and business security cameras with IMPD for enhanced public safety. He says there are currently around 53 B-link cameras in the city. Burton adds police are hitting hotspots downtown, meaning there will be high visibility of officers in areas such as South Meridian Street and West Georgia Street.
