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Four people were shot dead in Indianapolis just hours after the city-county council’s public safety & criminal justice committee voted down a new measure to tackle the outrageous crime problem in Marion County.
The proposal would have created a criminal justice study commission to review the status of the city’s long-term and short-term response to violent crime and ultimately, recommend policy changes.
Sadly, before the public had a chance to comment on the proposal, representatives from the mayor’s office, the sheriff’s office and the prosecutor’s office all delivered prepared remarks, urging the committee to vote down on the proposal. In the end, that’s exactly what happened, with the committee opting instead to move forward with its own plans.
Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police President Rick Snyder released the following statement shortly after the vote:
“Tonight’s Public Safety Committee rejected a proposal for a Commission to tackle the deficiencies in our broken criminal justice system. Unfortunately, a nonpartisan approach on solutions for violence and victims was voted down along party lines.
“Instead, the Chair of the Public Safety Committee and his colleagues made clear they have a plan to address the violence in Indianapolis and will handle these challenges through their committee. Law enforcement professionals, their families, and residents made clear we are in a crisis and the time to act is now.
“Elected leaders were begged to immediately bring stakeholders to the table including rank and file officers and residents. Sadly, that was rejected.
“We look forward to their plan of action while we continue to stand the line against surging violence. Our residents and our officers are caught in the middle of this. We ask that our community join together and pray for our leaders and the healing of our city.”
Reverend Charles Harrison, President of the Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition told WIBC’s Tony Katz he was “really frustrated” by the Public Safety Committee’s decision to vote down the proposal.
Harrison:
“I’ve been doing this for 21 years, and when we have been really successful in driving down the violence in the city of Indianapolis, it’s because we’ve been able to work together and find common ground. This is the first time in a long time that I’m completely fed up and disappointed with the fact that we can’t have the city-county council, the mayor’s office, the sheriff’s office, the prosecutor’s office having one plan and not being in communication with neighborhood organizations, the Fraternal Order of Police, and grassroots organizations that are on the streets and dealing with this violence every day.
“We can not say as a city that what we’re doing is working. It’s not working; it hasn’t been working for eight years; we’ve seen an eight-year surge in violence, and we’ve got to get the politics and personal animosity out of this so we can conquer this problem!”
Rev. Harrison told Tony Katz that the FOP and Ten Points Coalition no longer have a voice at the table.
“The city-county council [is] making decisions – right now the democrats are in control – that [has excluded] groups like Ten Point and the F.O.P. And instead of listening to us in putting this commission together, they’ve decided to move forward on their own, and they’re telling us that they’ve got this under control. It’s NOT under control, Tony, and it hasn’t been under control for a very long time. It’s absurd.”
Click the link below to hear Tony’s full interview with Rev. Charles Harrison.
