Fall Creek Place Plagued By Home Break-Ins

Wake up, Councilors Vop Osili and Joe Simpson. Your own neighborhood is under siege from home break-ins, while you're cutting deals with Mayor Greg Ballard that will deprive our police of the funding they need to provide adequate protection in our neighborhoods. WRTV's Jack Rinehart reports on what I've been hearing for months from friends who live in Fall Creek Place, a redeveloped neighborhood on the city's near northside represented by Councilors Vop Osili and Joe Simpson.

Police are stepping up patrols in a north-side neighborhood after a string of alarming break-ins that happened while homeowners were still in their homes. 

Just before 6 a.m. Tuesday morning, a homeowner chased burglars from his Fall Creek-area residence.

At 6:30 a.m., the burglars broke into another home and dragged the female victim from her residence until her screams alerted neighbors, who called police.

And at 8:30 a.m., they went back to that first home and then they got inside . . .

In the past month alone, burglars have broken into or attempted to break into at least 27 area homes.

"I think two weeks ago, a lady down the street, her house got broken into and I think she jumped out of a window," said one woman who lives in the neighborhood.

If there is a common scheme and plan, it's that the burglaries have taken place early in the morning, mostly between 6 and 10 a.m.

"It's pretty scary when people are coming into your home when people are home sleeping," another man said.

And in some instances, the burglars appear to be conducting surveillance on the neighborhood, striking when homeowners leave the residence.

"It's scary what's going on down here," a woman who was a victim of a burglary said. "Once I got home from vacation, they had been upstairs where I slept. They took jewelry that was family jewelry. They went all the way around the bedroom." 

Burglars and thieves have targeted a number of homes and automobiles on Sutherland Avenue between Central and College avenues.

Alan Gleghorn had lived crime-free in the neighborhood for nearly 30 years, until Tuesday.

"It really makes you feel violated to be honest with you. Someone entered your home and took your goods out. And they hit my neighbor also," Gleghorn said.

Both Councilors Osili and Simpson voted this week to divert much-needed property tax revenues available to fund basic city services in order to line the pockets of fat cat developers who've bought off all the politicians by expanding TIF districts to include valuable property to use to subsidize private development without even giving the public the opportunity to be heard on the matter. In the coming weeks, they will be deciding how much the police department's budget will need to be cut because there isn't enough money in the city-county's general fund to pay for basic city services. There's no end, however, to the handouts for politically-connected developers and billionaire sports team owners. The council will also soon be voting to give billionaire Herb Simon's Indiana Pacers tens of millions more in public subsidies because he claims he's losing money while his franchise pays its players who refuse to even live in the community multi-million dollar salaries. And wasn't Joe Simpson arrested recently by IMPD for interfering with their investigation of a break-in at a neighbor's home? Did the downtown mafia promise him leniency in his criminal case if he voted for the TIF proposal? It's consistent with how they operate.