INDIANAPOLIS — A longtime state attorney announced Tuesday that she plans to run for Marion County prosecutor and hopes to take on incumbent Ryan Mears in November.
Cyndi Carrasco said rising violence and record homicides in Marion County caused her to start a campaign.
"I just think that the status quo, quite frankly, is not working and I want to earn the opportunity to change that tide," Carrasco said. "The prosecutor needs to set the tone to say, 'this has to stop.'"
The 41-year-old is the first Republican to declare a campaign. She filed for the primary election in May with hopes of challenging Mears, a Democrat, who plans to run for reelection.
Carrasco is a state attorney who served as the state's second-ever inspector general before recently working as deputy general counsel and ethics advisor to the governor.
Carrasco said right now Indianapolis is in a public safety crisis.
"You know, in the last year, I've taken stock in the fact that the city that Indianapolis is now, it wasn't the city that I chose to stay here 20 years ago," she said.
Carrasco is an El Paso, Texas native, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, a wife and a mother to a 9-year-old daughter. She attended the Robert H. McKinney School of Law at Indiana University.
She's spent most of her legal career fighting white-collar crime. Going after violent criminals would be new and Carrasco said she'd take a team approach.
"We need to all work with law enforcement, with the courts and others in the community so we can together make a difference," Carrasco said.
Carrasco said she disagrees with Mears' policy of not prosecuting low-level marijuana cases, announced in 2019, which he said clogged up the courts.
"I don't believe that prosecutors should categorically dismiss a law because the role of a prosecutor is to enforce the law, not make the law," Carrasco said.
She also addressed the criticism Mears faced after the shooting at an Indianapolis FedEx facility that left eight people dead and five others wounded, for not previously opening a red flag petition against the gunman.
"I see the red flag law as a tool for prevention," Carrasco said, "and my goal would be to use that to avoid any other tragedies by timely filing those cases, making sure there are dedicated resources to make sure every case is filed and looked at."
Republicans will choose their preferred nominee for prosecutor in early February at their slating convention.
The primary election is Tuesday, May 3.