The Star's Lisa Renze-Rhodes reports that two overnight shootings occurred in the heart of downtown Indy as crowds jammed the downtown area for Black Expo. One of the shootings took place before midnight in the 100 block of Maryland, while the other took place in the 100 block of South Illinois just after 2:00 a.m. according to Renze-Rhodes. Three shooting victims were hospitalized in the aftermath. She reports that crowds remained downtown until well past 4:00 a.m., notwithstanding the shootings.
I noticed today that one restaurant-tavern on Illinois Street, whose patrons are primarily white, had a sign posted on the door that it had no public restrooms, and that it required 2 valid IDs for service. I wondered if this was meant to discourage Black Expo attendees from entering the establishment as I've never seen the sign posted in the past at this particular establishment.
6 comments:
I was downtown Saturday night, between shootings. I personally don't blame the resteraunt. I think it was the Palimino. There were too many juveniles out with no adult supervision. Black Expo is really going to have to look at that next year.
I actually had another place in mind. Juveniles out late without adult supervision has been a persistent problem, but didn't the courts strike down our curfew ordinance?
I was walking home with two 7-year-old children after the extra-inning Indians game on Saturday night about 11:15 PM ... across the State House parking lot and down Capitol to New York Street. There were juveniles and young adults carrying open containers of liquor, making rude and lude comments, and wearing very provocative clothes crowded in the parking lots and streets everywhere. The kids I was escorting were scared to death, and so was I, to be honest!
There were police at every intersection, seemingly to guide traffic, but they were letting everyone crowd on the sidewalks and drink openly. It was a mess!
At the same time ... if I'm remembering correctly, didn't the community raise a stink about it when the police DID crack down on this a few years back? Now that I've experienced it first-hand, I understand where the police were coming from ... and Black Expo really needs to do something about this. I intend to contact them first-thing Monday morning.
Troy--there was an issue a few years back about the police writing too many tickets. I was on the receiving end of one of those tickets. An IPD officer stood in the intersection of Washington & Capitol directing people from the second lane in to turn left because the turning lane traffic wasn't moving, or so I thought that was what he was doing. Instead, he wrote me and everyone else a ticket who followed his instructions for making an illegal left turn. What was needed was traffic control, but IPD used the opportunity to write a bunch of phony tickets. I'm told that many African-Americans, with the help of Mayor Peterson's office, got their tickets taken care of when they complained to local politicians. Your's truly got stuck with his ticket for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to make his way to the Post Office.
The problem was, and remains, too many unsupervised youths. Well, that, and the fact that they appear to have been raised by (M)TV.
I saw many girls wearing clothing more appropriate for Brad's Gold Club. They were probably 15. And guys walking around "holding their junk." with "shorts" around their ankles. Dr. White used to tell kids to hike up their shorts and raise their sights. How true.
Memo to IBE: schedule activities for these malcontents. Constantly. 24/7. Clearly, their parents don't supervise them. If they're going to gather around downtown during your wonderful celebration, shootings, violence and general rudeness are sure to follow, unfortunately. It's hurting IBE's reputation.
And the language. I was stunned at what I heard coming from their mouths. I'm downtown often and don't hear this kind of nonsense often. I think the number of unattended youth tends to add fuel to their fire--they seem to feed off one another, trying to "one-up" other youths.
Another observation: few, if any, were spending money at stores, restaurants, etc. Just massive, wholesale loitering and cruising.
Generations have tried to take care of the problels generated by mass cruising, and the age-old lesson is this--schedule activities, get them involved in something else.
Kinda like distracting them with shiny objects. Either that, or find some way to severely limit this insane loitering in packs--by the thousands. Good luck with that First Amendment issue.
Another great IBE partially soiled by post-midnight violence. Disgusting. And avoidable.
All I know is I went to a concert at White River Park on Friday not knowing the Black Expo was taking place. Upon leaving the event I was verbally harassed by youths shouting racial charged expressions like "yo, go to white expo", as well as being flipped off when we stopped at an intersection. This took place well within earshot of the police who did nothing of course. If I had driven through downtown yelling "hey it's N---- Expo" I would have been arrested or shot. It kills me than an event like this has degraded into a hate filled anti-white affair. I used to live in South Carolina and never heard nor saw any behavior from whites or blacks that matched what I witnessed over the weekend. Why do the so called "leaders" of the black community stand by and let this happen? If you can't control the crowd you are bringing, then stop having the event. I can imagine what would happen if I decided to have a "White Expo".
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