IMPD assistant chief: Permitless carry will make officers’ work ‘even more dangerous’
This is an editorial by Chris Bailey, assistant chief of police of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. The video with this editorial is from Bailey’s interview Friday night on the “UnPHILtered” segment on News 8 at 11.
First, I want to say thank you to the members of the General Assembly and their staff. They have a tough job, and we should all be thankful we have people in our community willing to serve. Being a public servant is not easy and the demands can be overwhelming at times, and we should appreciate them for what they do.
When we talk about public servants and the demands placed on them, no group has greater expectations than our law enforcement professionals. We ask them to go into places no one else would dare go. We ask them to intervene in what can be someone else’s worst day. We ask them to be mental health professionals, stop and solve crimes, be skilled in tactics, provide first aid, communicate with the skills of a trained negotiator, understand the law better than an attorney – and do so flawlessly 100% of the time.
No other profession needs as many skills while facing as much scrutiny. Law enforcement officers deserve community support, and it’s clear they need it now more than ever. The heavy responsibilities we place on our officers means they need every tool available to meet the evergrowing expectations from the public.
Last week, the General Assembly passed constitutional carry, which would eliminate the license requirement to carry a handgun. With 23 years in law enforcement, I have witnessed first-hand the devastation caused by illegally possessed guns. Families have been destroyed and neighborhoods stained with trauma after a murder. This dangerous public policy will embolden those who are legally prohibited from possessing a gun to freely carry them on our streets without common-sense checks from law enforcement and will continue to fuel the unacceptable level of violent crime we are experiencing in Indianapolis.
According to the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office, 1,300 cases are currently being prosecuted in our courts related to individuals possessing a handgun without a license. Each one of the incidents represents a gun taken from our streets and tested using the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN); a system which can provide law enforcement with forensic information linking the gun to shooting incidents, not only here in Indianapolis but around the country. This invaluable tool has solved numerous shots fired, non-fatal shooting, and homicide incidents.
Removing illegally possessed guns from our streets and disrupting the shooting cycle is the primary goal of the Indiana Crime Guns Task Force (ICGTF), created with bi-partisan support in the 2021 session. Allowing constitutional carry will hinder their efforts to make central Indiana safer just as they are getting started.
In the first year, ICGTF removed hundreds of crime guns from the hands of people willing to pull the trigger against a neighbor. This did not only occur in Marion County, but throughout Central Indiana. We funded this task force with $10 million dollars of taxpayer money to be focused on trigger pullers and investigations focused on those who are using firearms to commit crimes. We owe it to our cops, kids and community members to support their life-saving efforts.
As we witnessed in February, the job of a cop is a dangerous one. A young Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer was shot in the neck and forever changed by an illegally possessed weapon. Constitutional carry will make the already perilous work of our officers even more dangerous.
As public servants, we should be committed be committed to all of those we serve, not special interests or the vocal minority. We owe it to our cops and more importantly, our neighbors to be reasonable in the exercise of the 2nd Amendment. Therefore, I urge Governor Holcomb to veto the legislation passed last week removing the requirement for a license to carry a handgun.