Monday, August 07, 2006

Peterson Calls For 11% Increase In Public Safety Spending

Mayor Bart Peterson (D) told the Indianapolis City-County Council he wanted to increase the Public Safety Department's budget by 11%, a $54 million increase. He isn't saying how he's going to pay for it. An additional 200 beds provided by Corrections Corporation America, however, will be paid for by borrowing from the city's sewer fund.

A Star report quoted Peterson as saying that there appeared to be no single reason for the recent violence. “My best guess is that it is a cumulative effect of many things that have been going on for several years,” he said, mentioning the early release of some jail inmates as an example.“We haven’t seen anything real specific, such as a new drug coming into Indianapolis, or bad guys coming in from other cities, the kind of thing you normally might expect to see cause a spike in crime.”

That's not what Mayor Peterson's former Public Safety Director Robert Turner said in May during an interview on Amos Brown's radio talk show according to WTHR:

Robert Turner, the man with a pulse on the city's public safety until this past June, forewarned of escalating violence during an appearance on the Amos Brown radio show. "The number and level of narcotics coming into this city is massive. It's massive now. We're setting up new territories and now the traditional drug dealers are fighting with the new drug dealers," Turner said.

And WTHR reports that there has been yet another killing tonight, this time just blocks from the Indiana State Fairgrounds. A shocked next-door neighbor and mother of several children expressed her frustration that police aren't doing enough. Just this past Saturday night after the Mayor declared an emergency in response to the spate of new killings, I saw 6 IPD officers sitting in the BP station at Fall Creek and 38th Street just blocks from where tonight's shooting took place having coffee together around 9:00 p.m. when I stopped in for some $3 plus gasoline. I don't fault the officers for taking a break, but it doesn't make sense to have 6 cruisers idled at one time for a coffee break on a Saturday night in a crime-ridden area.

UPDATE: Yet another killing overnight. A stabbling death on the far eastside brings the total number of murders in the city this year to 91.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can wait to see the tax increase coming. Bart and Frank have ignored this problem for a long time. They lost the confidence of the former Director, code enforcement has fallen off, and they do away with community policing initiatives to move officers to the street.

Six officers at the BP, should be the least of our worries. The mayor has treated IPD like a stepchild for the past 4 years, I guess it really makes you want to go out and work hard for him!

The best part...they merge to save money, then he recants and states it won't save money, but it will mean better service. RIGHT! Better for who, the republicans were right on this one, study it, place the plan on paper, let the mayor retain control of a chief (instead of the overpaid sheriff running it), and put the plan in motion over a period of time. NOPE, lets bargin for votes, have no real plan, lie to the public, and hope for the best.

Results, high crime for many more years to come. What everyone seems to forget, come Jan 1, Bart does not control IPD. Hope him and Frank don't have a falling out, but of course the merger was meant to take politics out of the police/sheriff departments.

Anonymous said...

The police are telling their story here:

www.indyundercover.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

But he is cutting the Prosecutor's budget by 5%!

How much longer will he keep cutting the MCPO budget, this ties their hands in fighting crime. Just so he can get his puppet kennedy elected.

He doesn't care for the people of this city.

Anonymous said...

You can bet that 11% increase won't translate into 11% more cops on the street.

Darth Peterson is bending over backwards with developers to get folks to move downtown, get more conventions and big-ticket sporting events, etc. With literally 1000s of Hoosiers moving downtown, he hasn't made one concrete move to insure their safety, give them amenities, more parks, or better schools.
Indy residents will get taxed-to-death with a failing IPS, the Library Folly, and a new stadium that only a fraction of the population will use, to show for it.

Seriously Darth Peterson, what's the use of all the glitz if you're just going to be mugged or killed trying to live and work downtown?