Indianapolis leaders credit reduced total of homicides in 2022, 2023 to gun strategy

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indianapolis government leaders on Thursday touted a 31% decrease in the number of criminal homicides in the city over the last two years.

Democrat Mayor Joe Hogsett said the decrease is due in part to the successes of the city’s three-year plan to reduce gun violence. “Those statistics mean, in real terms, equates to 81 lives having been saved,” he said.

During the same two years, the city noted a 20% decrease in the number of nonfatal shootings.

The leaders cited a strategy to reduce gun violence that was funded with $150 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, federal money set aside for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The money was spent on new police technology and more officers, and shared with grassroots violence-prevention organizations.

The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform say a part of the city’s plan that has worked the best was focusing on preventing retaliation shootings. Every week, police analyze the people who are most likely to retaliate to a previous shooting.

David Muhammad, director of the institute, said, “Some of those individuals identified will have focused enforcement on them. I mentioned the 100 officers who are focused on this. Some of them (the individuals) haven’t done anything illegal but are making threats to retaliate for their friends’ shooting online, and they have the risk factors that say they might actually retaliate.”

When people haven’t committed a crime but threaten retaliation, the Indy Peace Fellowship steps in with on-the-street “peacemakers” funded through the plan.

Muhammad said, “The level of finding those individuals, engaging them, and getting them to agree to be in this fellowship to have a life coach for the next six, 12, 18 months that has been particularly successful.”

Outside of this plan, Hogsett said the community as a whole also deserves credit. “They are stepping up to provide jobs, mentorships, education, and other resources that contribute to that No. 1 crime deterrent: prosperity.”

While the decrease is good, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department leader thinks there is still a long way to go. Chief Randal Taylor said, “We know that really our work is far from over. We’re going to have to really look at our youth violence. We’re going to have to look at how many children have access to firearms and how do we deal with that.”

The American Rescue Plan Act funding has dried up for the strategy, but the mayor says his office will work with the City-County Council to get more funding it in the years to come.