City of Indianapolis sued over deaths of kayakers in White River

Source: Indianapolis Fire Department / other

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The City of Indianapolis is being sued by the estates of two kayakers who died in April 2024 after their kayaks went over a dam they say the city failed to maintain.

The lawsuit filed Monday claims the Consolidated City of Indianapolis, Indianapolis Parks and Recreation, and Indianapolis Department of Public Works did not properly warn of the dangers of the Emrichsville Dam, leading to the deaths of cousins Marcus Robinson and Solomon Shirley.

Robinson, 30, and Shirley, 22, drowned after their kayaks went over the low-head dam on the White River, just south of 16th Street in Haughville. Their bodies were recovered April 22, almost a week after they were reported missing.

According to the suit, Robinson and Shirley were unaware of the dam as the city “failed to place and/or maintain signs warning of the presence and lethal danger of the dam.”

The dam was built in 1899 to develop Riverside Park upstream. It partially collapsed in 2018 and was replaced by a “smaller, safer, and more ecologically-friendly rock dam.”

In May 2024, the city received a $750,000 grant from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the dam, but the dam was still open and operating as of March 2025.

Robinson and Shirley were not the only people to drown at Emrichsville Dam. In 2021, 17-year-old Kevin Rodriguez drowned after his canoe went over the dam.

The suit claims after the teen’s death, the city ignored requests to “remove the dam, to modify it to make it less dangerous, or at least to place multiple conspicuous signs upstream.” It later says the city placed a sign on the 16th Street bridge stating “Rapids Ahead,” but made no other attempt place warning signs.

The estates’ representative asks the city, “in light of the above negligence and wrongful acts,” pay Robinson and Shirley’s beneficiary compensation “for their loss of love, care, and affection, in addition to burial/funeral expenses, attorney fees, and costs from the Defendants.”

Online records show Indy Parks and Rec, DPW, and the Consolidated City of Indianapolis and Marion County were issued court summons on Monday. The city has not responded to the filing as of Tuesday afternoon.