INDIANAPOLIS — Temperatures rose this weekend and so too did the number of shootings in Indianapolis. As of Monday afternoon, IMPD’s police chief said, so far, there are no signs the crimes were connected.
13 Investigates plotted out 11 shootings this Saturday and Sunday spread across various Indianapolis communities.
"No histories there that we can see,” said IMPD Chief Randal Taylor. "No way really, unfortunately, to predict any of these things. Just a bad weekend."
Taylor said his department is still working to address the issue with more manpower and better tools to help catch suspects after a crime is committed.
IMPD said it may not feel like it, but violent crime is actually down.
The department is reporting 68 homicides and 64 murder cases this year compared to 79 homicides and 76 murders around this time in 2021. The police department also reports nonfatal shootings are down nearly 20%.
Taylor said he’d rather his officers intervene before the crime occurs. That’s part of the reason why he applauds the effort to increase the number of civilian peacemakers. There are now more than 40 citywide.
"That's a breakdown of life coaches, violence interrupters and outreach workers,” said Tony Lopez, the city’s deputy director of violence reduction.
Lopez’s boss, Lauren Rodriguez, said there aren’t statistics to show the program is reducing crime, but she believes it’s helping.
“It’s proving the negative right,” said Rodriguez, who is the director of the Office of Public Health and Safety. “I would say they’ve already been reducing crime. The interruptions that we reported last year. A lot of those included guns. So we don’t know. It’s kind of hard for us to say because we’ve interrupted this many times we’ve solved all this many shootings. We don’t have that answer for you, but we can say that we’ve interrupted violent areas.”
Rodriguez said the goal is to continue, and have peacemakers link Hoosiers with grassroots groups that can help with poverty, hunger and mental health issues in an effort to reduce crime.
“I think this is a team effort,” Rodriguez said. “It's not a city versus community, it's not a government versus community issue.”
Indy set aside $15 million for the Elevation Grant Program, which is millions more than what was given to it when it was called the Violent Crime Prevention Grant Program.