Indianapolis curfew for teenagers takes effect
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Six days after a shooting in downtown Indianapolis left seven teenagers injured, a citywide curfew took effect at 11 p.m. Friday.
Children under the age of 15 must be accompanied by an adult between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. the next day.
Democratic Mayor Joe Hogsett says state law allows the city to enact such a curfew.
“We will make a concerted effort, particularly in the downtown area, but really throughout the community, that if young people are in violation of the state’s curfew ordinance, they’ll be arrested and prosecuted,” Hogsett said Friday.
Chief Chris Bailey of Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department says officers will crack down on disorderly behavior before the curfew takes effect.
Bailey said Friday, “It wasn’t just the persons that were shot last weekend that were a significant issue for us, it was groups of kids fighting. It was individual juveniles being jumped and beat up. It was groups of kids going inside restaurants and harassing customers and employees.”
Bailey posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that officers will make announcements through their squad cars’ public-address systems to alert people about the curfew shortly before and after it begins.
He says only a minority of teenagers are breaking the law; most children are not causing any trouble.
“A majority of our kids, 99.9% of our kids that came downtown, that go to Broad Ripple, that go to Castleton, they are doing what we all did as teenagers. They want to socialize. They want to be out with their friends, and they do the right thing.”
Exceptions to the curfew can be made for teens coming to and from work, school, religious services or family emergencies under the state law.
