Something is seriously going wrong in Indianapolis: 9 shootings in 6 days (5 deaths) as of 6pm

[salin]

The night isn't over - so the count may go up.

The early part of the year followed national trends of lower per capita violent crimes. In the past month, trends have shifted.

Last evening, I was rerouted to avoid a murder scene - major thoroughfare.

I feel like I have been transported back a little more than 20 years to Detroit, where I worked during an exceptional violent crime wave.

I doubt this extreme escalation has made the national news. I am sure that if it continues - that it soon will. The following story is about the most recent shooting/murder.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20130710/NEWS/307100107/1-shot-head-another-hurt-Eastside

A man was shot in the head this afternoon on the city’s Eastside.

The shooting occurred shortly before 5 p.m. at North Chester Avenue and East Walnut Street. The victim was taken in critical condition to Wishard Memorial Hospital. Another person injured in the incident was also taken there. It’s unclear what his injuries are, but police said he was not shot.

Police initially handcuffed a man on a street next to Chester Avenue after the shooting, but released him after finding he was not involved.

The shooting means nine people have been shot in six days in Marion county. Of those nine, five people have died.

Someone on a local site (I have no idea of the reliability) countered a commenter who shifted to Chicago's murder rate, cited numbers per hundred thousand, for this year - and if the numbers are correct - the per capita murder rate in Indy have well surpassed Chicago.

I weep for this city.

[NuclearDem]

1. One of those nine was my friend's brother

Somebody lost a fight with him earlier in the day, then came back when the fireworks were going off and got him at short range with a sawed-off shotgun.

He's one of the five dead.

[salin]

3. I am so very sorry for your friend, his family, and those who were close

to your friend's brother.

Tragic. Heart wrenching.

While the crisis isn't necessarily political - the current mayor has overseen an extended time period (several years) of saving money by not replacing police officers who retire or leave their jobs at the rate of the shrinking in the ranks.

[NuclearDem]

5. That surge of neo-liberalism that invaded the city during the Superbowl

destroyed it when it finally left. A whole lot of temporary jobs disappeared virtually overnight, and a ton of money which could have gone to emergency services, education, and urban renewal went into spray-painting over the city's problems for a month or so.

[salin]

7. +10

and the city is already jumping all over itself to spend the money just to compete to bring another Superbowl to Indy. Priorities are really topsy-turvey here.

[Robb]

2. Chicago is not #1; it's a bit of a "gun rights activist" myth.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1262933

Chicago's city rate is 11.6, FWIW.

[salin]

4. I have worked in two of the cities on that list.

This current spike is eerily reminiscent of when two of those cities spiked up to per capita murder capital (neither of those cities were Chicago - that is just a local cons. reference to attempt to pretend that we don't have an escalating issue here). I fear that amidst the national proclamations of trends of declining violent crimes - that places where the trend is opposite will be ignored.

[Robb]

6. Indeed.

It seems there's at least some effort to make a certain level of gun violence "acceptable," because perhaps it is worse elsewhere, or simply was worse at another time.

A particularly small town I lived in for some time had a police chief who was fond of noting that, upon his hiring a second deputy, crime numbers went up dramatically -- because there were twice as many police out responding to, reporting and documenting crime. His joke was that they if they really wanted to do something about crime numbers, they'd fire the entire department.

[salin]

9. Interesting anecdote.

I understand that dynamic.

Here, however, we haven't been replacing retiring police officers (or those who leave for other reasons) at the rate of attrition. Budget cutting.

That hasn't been an issue for much of the current Mayor's reign (5 years - four years of a first term, and partway into the first year of a second term.) As the trends mirrored national trends - until June of this year.

I have lived and/or worked in 3 cities that either were the leading murder per capita in the country while I worked/lived there - or were the year before I moved there or claimed that title the year after I lived there. I understand generalized violent crime that occurs in urban areas, and I understand extreme conditions - though I haven't dealt with them for more than a decade.

What is unfolding here (including what appear to be retaliation events) is eerily reminiscent of those earlier experiences. When the environment becomes so unsafe that areas can feel as uncertain as war zones, the community can become traumatized and the flight of those who can afford to leave escalates at huge rates. Two of the communities I lived in were surrounded by such wealthy areas that the 'saving grace' came from gentrification by those who saw the growing abandoned neighborhoods as opportunities (think parts of DC). One (Detroit) continued to suffer from flight. In 1993 there were on average 3 abandoned homes on each city block within the city. Today there are swaths of abandoned areas. Perhaps gentrification "saved" a few areas, but the deterioration I lived through accelerated over the next two decades.

I continue to be convinced that Detroit is our urban canary in the coal mine. Right now - though perhaps it is just an "episode" it feels this midwestern city is beginning to follow suit. (On other indicators such as number of abandoned homes, as well.)

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. I wonder what is going on? I didn't realize it was getting bad here

[salin]

10. Dramatic escalation.

Watch the star on line. Don't love it as a paper - but local reporting is pretty good.

Don't know what is going on and whether it is an aberration or a growing trend. However, because I both work and live in areas that are fairly poverty stricken - I feel the impact of the violence and threat of violence - as the murders have started circling closer to both (within less than a mile radius.)

[salin]

11. Two more events

another shooting (around midnight last night) - not reported for hours - and no update as to the status of the victim (recovering? critical? fatal?) The reporting is becoming vague.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20130711/NEWS/307110020/Man-shot-city-s-Northside-10th-person-shot-6-days-Indianapolis

Than this morning a body was found - of a 24 year old near a creek, on a sidewalk.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20130711/NEWS/307110031/IMPD-investigating-body-found-Far-Eastside

I won't try to opine as to what factors are coming into confluence - just that the spike in violence is unusual, spiking, and signaling something. What, I don't know. I just know that it is alarming.

I write this -and will either continue to add to it - or report that conditions have calmed here. I hope that it is the latter. If it is the former - I would guess that we have yet another canary in the coalmine situation emerging - as there are not unique urban economic challenges.