Police, agencies to swarm South Meridian Street bars after weekend shootout
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — News 8 has learned Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department plans a massive show of force outside downtown bars after a weekend shootout early Sunday that sent people scrambling for cover.
This week, concerned downtown stakeholders called a private safety meeting with IMPD, the nonprofit Downtown Indy Inc., and business owners.
News 8 spoke to a couple of the business owners after the meeting. They didn’t want to be named or go on camera, but said the issues stem from just three bars. Police said they’re fed up and are willing to take whatever steps necessary to make it stop.
IMPD Assistant Chief Chris Bailey said the area of South Meridian Street where hundreds of shots rang out early Sunday morning is one of the safest in the city. But for some reason, he said, more guns are ending up downtown and causing chaos on the weekends.
The situation has put IMPD in a tough spot.
“There isn’t this unlimited bag of resources that we can keep going to out there to protect a two-block area that you’d think grown adults should be able to control themselves in an environment like a bar,” Bailey said.
He did not name specific businesses, but said the problems come from the same few places and they’re south of Monument Circle in the 200 and 300 blocks of South Meridian Street.
“I know they’re ‘Well, it didn’t happen inside my business.’ Well, that’s fine, but overserving for hours is occurring in your business, overcrowding so where people spill drinks and bump each other and have opportunities to have disagreements is happening inside your establishment,” Bailey said.
What’s worse, he said, the crime is happening right next to IMPD’s downtown district office. That’s why Bailey said stopping this situation will take outside help and, starting this weekend, police will swarm the area.
“I have contacted state police who has generously offered to bring more resources downtown to supplement our people. I’ve directed our DUI task force grants, as much as they can in the legal parameters within the grants to do, DUI checkpoints and use their DUI enforcement on the thoroughfares in and out of downtown to discourage people who think they can bring guns into downtown and use them illegally in our downtown area,” Bailey said.
Bailey said police will also put pressure on businesses that don’t want to police themselves.
“We’re going to use all city agencies including Business Neighborhood Services. We’re going to talk to (Indiana) Excise (Police). We’re going to use our nuisance abatement unit, the fire marshal from the fire department,” Bailey said.
He added that hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime is spent patrolling that block every year, and that there are better ways to spend taxpayer money.
Bailey said the added enforcement does not have an end date and will continue as long as police believe it’s necessary.
