Abdul-Hakim Shabazz: City needs urgency, leadership in tackling violence

I hate to say I told you so.

But just days after I published a column at IndyPolitics.com warning that downtown was spiraling into lawlessness, the city delivered a tragic confirmation. Two teenage boys were shot and killed. Five more were wounded. On Independence Day, no less.

And the official response? Mayor Joe Hogsett stood behind a podium and declared—presumably without flinching—that downtown is still “the safest neighborhood in the city.”

Seriously?

This was the latest entry in a recurring pattern. We’ve been down this road before. And we keep acting like it’s brand-new pavement.

Remember when we started seeing roving packs of teens downtown post-pandemic? The fights outside Circle Centre Mall? The social media-fueled chaos? The shootings? We’ve seen this movie, and yet somehow city leaders are shocked every time the credits roll the same way.

If downtown really is “safe,” why does it keep needing police tape and press conferences to explain away the bodies?

Technically, downtown may still be statistically safer than other parts of the city. But perception is reality. And when families watch viral videos of teenagers brawling on Monument Circle or read about teenagers with rifles near Steak ‘n Shake, they don’t think: Gee, the data must show improvement. They think: I’m not taking my kids down there.

That’s a branding crisis. And no amount of smooth messaging from the Mayor’s Office is going to clean it up.

To be fair, the mayor is pushing curfew enforcement—and that’s a good first step. If nothing else, it sets expectations and gives law enforcement a tool they haven’t been using nearly enough. But let’s not pretend this is a silver bullet. If a kid’s got an AR-style rifle in his hands, he probably doesn’t care that it’s past 11 p.m.

Council President Vop Osili said it well: “Every life lost to violence is one too many. … I am saddened and frustrated by the senselessness of the gun violence plaguing our communities.”

Council Majority Leader Maggie Lewis added that we must unite, support downtown police overtime and fund the social action organizations that are already out there trying to de-escalate before bullets fly.

All true. All overdue. But here’s the hard truth: This city has a nasty habit of reacting instead of planning. We lurch from crisis to crisis, then hand out microphones and hope nobody notices the same problems keep repeating themselves.

And before anyone tries to blame IMPD, let me stop you right there. Chief Chris Bailey is not the problem. He’s a good man doing one of the hardest jobs in this city. When he said, “We are not your children’s keepers,” he wasn’t wrong. Law enforcement can’t raise your kids—and shouldn’t have to.

But they also can’t keep downtown safe if City Hall keeps pretending this is just a perception issue. So let’s stop playing games and get real. Here’s what needs to happen:

◗ Enforce the curfew—not just talk about it. That means warnings, write-ups and parent accountability.

◗ Flood downtown with foot patrols. Not just cars. Cops walking streets, talking to people, being present.

◗ Fund grassroots groups that know these kids. You know, the ones who’ve been doing the work while City Hall wrote press releases.

◗ Create structured safe spaces. Give kids a place to go that isn’t the mall or an alley.

◗ Hold parents responsible. If your teen is out downtown at midnight with a weapon, congratulations, you just got yourself a court date.

We’ve done versions of this before. And then we stopped doing it. We moved on. We “pivoted.” We got distracted by ribbon cuttings and Twitter drama.

And here we are. Again.

Council President Osili is right: We need “opportunities, resources, and deep community relationships.” But that won’t mean much without urgency. Without action. Without leadership.

If you have to keep telling people downtown is safe, chances are it isn’t. Not in the ways that count.

And if we don’t get ahead of this now, we’re going to be back here again in another two weeks, rewriting the same tragic headline with different names.

Enough.•

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Shabazz is a pundit, attorney and publisher of IndyPolitics.org. He also writes for IBJ’s Forefront publication.