Mayor, Police Talk With Community During Public Safety Walk

By Cora Butrum and Carter Barrett

Indianapolis city officials discussed community and police relations Wednesday during a monthly Public Safety Walk.

“I’ve been talking to police officers, I’ve been talking to law enforcement leadership, I’ve been talking to community leaders, and I think that’s what we ought to be engaged in right now; a very thoughtful, a very reflective and a very deliberate process about where we go from here,” Mayor Joe Hogsett said. 

This month’s walk follows the merit board decision to retain the two police officers who fatally shot Aaron Bailey, an unarmed man, last year.

“It’s certainly is evidence that we are taking the level of gun violence very seriously,” Hogsett said.

Hogsett and police officers walked through a neighborhood located at 42nd Street and Post Road, a location police identify as a high-crime area.

The mayor stopped to talk to local resident Sheila Dunlop, 53, during the walk. She’s lived in the neighborhood for six years and commented on the changes she’s seen.

“Like a lot of older people, we're scared to come out and sit on our porches. I’ve noticed that the kids couldn’t go to the park because the drug dealers were taking over the park and the community,” Dunlop said. “But they moved most of them out so it’s gotten a lot better, a lot better. I appreciate them being out here.”