“We are not your children’s keepers. You are! Parents and guardians have got to step up, a kid is dead tonight.”
--IMPD Chief Chris Bailey
Go back only a few decades, and Indianapolis was known as India-No-Place. Pretty literally, you could shoot a cannon down Meridian Street downtown after, say, 7pm and you wouldn’t hit anyone. Times have changed.
Although we didn’t do too well with the downtown shopping mall, in the past 10 years, the city center has developed a strong convention business, packed sports complexes, great restaurants, bars, theaters, and other entertainment venues that bring revenue into our city and excitement into the state as a whole.
So, let’s think: How can we mess that all up? Oh. Maybe by having a mob of kids with guns shoot up a crowd during what should be one of the best nights of the year—like maybe the Fourth of July. But how likely is that?
Apparently, it is very likely. In the midst of thousands of those who came downtown to see the fireworks, hundreds more came to cause trouble. After midnight on July 4th, there was a mass shooting below the Artsgarden at Washington Street and Illinois. One of the city’s spiritual leaders was quoted by WISH TV, saying that “pointing fingers solely at parents is both unjust and ineffective.” He might be right, but to whom else should fingers be pointed? Seriously, don’t we all need to know? Is it the church? Or perhaps the whole community? Are the police at fault somehow? Is trauma or hatred part of the problem, and if so, who can we blame for that?
Meanwhile, Leroy Robinson, who chairs the Indianapolis City-County Council’s Public Safety Committee, said the Marion County Juvenile Detention Center and Juvenile Family Services currently “do not have the staffing or capacity to intake and process large numbers of minors on a Friday or Saturday night.” I’m sure he’s right. But apparently, there were hundreds of kids out on the street. And eventually, two ended up dead that night. Do we take them all out for ice cream? We’re at a loss. The parents whose children died are at a loss, and India-No-Place is looking better and better.
Mayor Hogsett had previously promoted the idea that parents should enforce the city curfew rather than actually have IMPD pick up kids who were breaking the curfew. Since that hasn’t worked, he has toughened up and let the IMPD go ahead and take trouble-makers off the street. Others have said that non-profits should step up to help. I’m sure they will—to the extent that they can, and with the little money they have. But they’re not sitting there on the sofa when Junior walks out the door at midnight with a gun in his jacket pocket.
The old gag, “Who’s on first,” isn’t the question anymore. Who’s the boss is the question. Too many times, a young man who doesn’t have life experience but is tough enough to go against his parents is the boss. And that young, valuable child may just end up in prison or dead.
Chris Bailey is 150% right.
Jim
