Do you remember this gun store robbery on Crawfordsville Road last month where two thieves stole 31 guns? One of those guys shown clearly on the store's surveillance cameras is 16-year old Simeon "Red" Adams, a boy who had been taken into police custody over the past nine months for multiple crimes, including possession of stolen firearms. Adams had two gun arrests in October and December of last year for possession of stolen firearms. The October arrest happened after Adams and a friend were stopped by police while zipping around on a scooter near 29th & Harding. Two months later, a woman's car was stolen at a Sunoco gas station on MLK Drive while she was filling it up with gas. When her car was recovered, Adams was found nearby with a stolen gun and marijuana. Last summer, he was arrested for stealing a flat screen TV from a home that had just been burglarized. Adams was caught carrying the flat screen TV while wearing latex gloves. Before all of that happened, he was caught in a stolen car last July and released to his father without any charges being filed against him. This video of the robbery of CNC Midwestern Firearms on Crawfordsville Road occurred on March 22. Adams and an accomplice stole 31 weapons valued at $13,000. On March 30, Adams shot Erick Douglas twice during an altercation outside a business in the 2900 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Adams used the same handgun he used on Douglas to fatally shoot Trapuzzano two days later. Police found Adams with a gunshot wound to his neck 17 hours after he shot Trapuzzano at a residence on West 35th Street, which had been the scene of another shooting only a week earlier. To top it off, the Rev. Charles Harrison of the Ten Points Coalition tells WRTV that he chased Adams and a group of teens out of a gas station parking lot the day before he gunned down Nathan Trapuzzano. Harrison claims he called 911 to report that the teens were armed with guns. IMPD and Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry owe an explanation to the Trapuzzano family as to why they seemingly kept foisting this thug on Indianapolis' streets to terrorize Indianapolis residents. They've had intimate knowledge of this kid's criminal activities for months and deliberately allowed him to freely roam the streets of Indianapolis to commit increasingly more serious crimes that led up to Trapuzzano's senseless murder. When is the media going to put Chief Rick Hite and Marion Co. Prosecutor Terry Curry on the hot seat and start asking some tough questions of their handling of this serial, repeat offender instead of patting them on the back for a job well done? And where was the Department of Child Services each time this juvenile was picked up by police for committing crimes while he obviously lacked any parental supervision? Lots of questions needing answers here, folks. Demand that we get them.
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| Simeon Adams |
The Star has been the champion of expanding Public Transportation and building of subsidized apartments downtown, as a way of attracting "Young Professionals" to Indianapolis.
ReplyDeleteThe senseless shooting of Trapuzzano and the fact the shooter has such a long history of violence that was ignored by the Police is a serious blow to all the hype about attracting Young Professionals to Central Indianapolis.
I guess it is time for Ballard to take a quick trip out of the country.
Its just a systemic failure of the Marion County justice system, from the top down. When people complain about our ineffective Judges, prosecutors, juvenile system and police, this is what they’re talking about. Of course the Trapuzzano family feel victimized. Who do they sue to right this terrible wrong? Probably everybody that failed them will enjoy immunity from prosecution. Ironic isn’t it. The people most responsible for this family’s tragedy, Simeon Adams and all the people who failed to control him, probably won’t apologize or even acknowledge their personal and professional failures. Every day we see these murders on our streets and Mayor Ballard explaining that they’re not random. I read the other day that Indianapolis had surpassed Chicago’s murder rate. The Trapuzzano boy is gone. I wonder how many years it will be before the Adams boy is out of jail and back on the streets.
ReplyDeleteHas nothing to do with IMPD. They keep putting them in jail and the "system" keeps letting them out.
ReplyDeleteCareful the Indy star will brand you a vile racist
ReplyDeleteThe entire judicial system is built to collect revenue and increase governmental power. Protection of the people is a task that they don't want and only sporadically perform to keep up appearances.
ReplyDeleteHis widow should one day take a serious look at epic dereliction of this county's judiciary.
ReplyDeleteThe court and probation system is broken in this county. The juvenile system is a travesty. There no reporter willing to shine the light on the judges that let dangerous people out on home detention over and over again.
ReplyDeleteThis is only the beginning. Wait until you see the new revisions to the IC Codes coming July 1. It's about to get much worse.
So the police ofcs do their jobs and lock up this violent kid and yet its still their fault? I didn't think the police were responsible for charging the suspect, judging the suspect, sentencing the suspect, rehabilitating the suspect, making sure the suspect complies with home detention/probation, and/or remove the suspect from a terrible home. I thought Judge Dredd was only a movie. Im sorry, Im just sick of IMPD getting the blame for everything...
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Adams had been in and out of police custody on so many occasions over the past 9 months should have triggered someone within IMPD to closely monitor his activities. Any police sleuthing at all would have made him a prime suspect in that gun store theft last month. IMPD's Ten Point Coalition's partner, Rev. Charles Harrison, knew who he was by name, saw him with a large group of teen-agers no more than 24 hours before the shooting and told police he and the others were all armed with guns. He called and made the report to 911. Given the explosion in shootings the past couple of years, the profile of those committing violent acts with guns and the knowledge that there were dozens of illegal guns on the streets as a result of last month's gun store theft, that entire area should have been locked down and a search made for Adams and that large group of armed teen-agers. I venture to guess that if Adams shot two people over a 3-day period and got shot himself, he likely was involved in numerous other shootings over the past year for which he was not arrested. This kid wasn't being discrete in his law-breaking, but it obviously doesn't take much effort to escape IMPD's net.
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't Chief Hite give him a big hug and hire him to be his Assistant Police Chief?
ReplyDelete-then Chief Hite could write a glowing recommendation for him to get a job. If only Chief Hite would have done what he does best with criminals....
I guess this proves that police cannot arrest their way out of the violence inflicted on Indianapolis by these young offenders...the courts just keep turning them loose to victimize us!
ReplyDeleteIndianapolis Superpredators who are so impulsive, so remorseless that they will kill rape and injure without a second thought
Incidentally, I went over to Bart Lies site and checked the homicide list for this year. Within five minutes I identified four homicides within the sphere that Adams' committed virtually all of his crimes on the west, northwest side. The two suspects identified in two of those killings matched the description of Adams and his accomplice, Martez McGraw. All four homicide victims were blacks in their late teens or early 20s.
ReplyDeleteBack to this gun store robbery, I'm really bothered by it. IMPD had to be burying their heads in the sand not to have been on top of that right away. Was someone operating their own fast and furious-style program here in Indy to support the downtown mafia's public push for support of a panoply of tax increases in the upcoming budget to support public safety? I believe that these bastards are so vile that they would actually set in motion events to allow for a big crime spree to shock the public's conscience. You mark my word, the meme has already been written in stone. The Indianapolis public and their shills in the media will make the case that all of these shootings are happening because there's not enough money to hire the number of police officers IMPD needs, which is total bullshit. Mayor Ballard and his corrupt cronies have diverted more than a half billion dollars in funds that would otherwise be available for public safety and other basic services spending over the past 7 years to hand out to his pay-to-play pals who are stuffing money in the politicians' pockets. Yet you will be led to believe that it's your fault because you are shirking your duty to pay higher taxes to support public safety. That's the same, lame line they laid on us in 2007 to support their 65% increase in the income tax, which was supposed to generate at least $90 million a year in new revenues. What did it get you? Not a single new police hire despite promises of at least 100 new police officers.
One more point, why did I have to read the British Daily Mail to learn that Adams' accomplice was Martez "Duh Duh" McGraw? Hite wasn't identifying the accomplice at the press conference or explaining why he wasn't arrested. Is this guy a police informant who has been encouraging Adams' crime spree for the past several months? Could it be that certain people knew exactly what this kid has been doing all along and was simply waiting for their critical mass? Who shot Adams? Didn't IMPD know right away when he arrived at Eskenazi that he was Trapuzzano's shooter? And didn't they already know that he was their suspect in other shootings and the gun store robbery? Inquiring minds want to know the truth.
ReplyDeleteWe all know that there is a coming push by local government to raise our taxes on the false premise that we don't pay enough to the government to provide for our safety. In reality, they need more money to hand out to their pay to play supporters.
ReplyDeleteHere was the rub; as the murder rate kept rising, with bodies piling up all over the city, there was no outrage from the general public (taxpayers). Watching drug dealer after drug dealer knock each other off didn't resonate with the general public. In most peoples minds, the ones who were dying were at least partially responsible for their own deaths. Just the cost of doing business as they say.
They need the everyday working man to be scared and in fear for their families safety. They needed a face for their push into our wallets. They needed an everyday guy who wasn't slinging drugs, who was just the wrong guy in the wrong place. They needed a victim that the taxpayer could relate to.
It's no stretch to think that if they kept turning thugs loose on the citizens of Indianapolis that they would get their victim eventually.
Just my opinion here.
Ballard and his twisted PR folks were probably high-fiving each other and slamming a few beverages as they discussed how to capitalize on his killing, "Let's call it Nathan's Law." Mr. Public Safety Is Job One has been totally AWOL since the shooting was announced. He was busy promoting his new Pacers BikeShare crap. His first comment on the shooting was this Twitter post yesterday patting IMPD for a job well done: "Great work from men & women of @IMPD_News MT: Detectives arrest a 16-year-old for the murder of Nathan Trapuzzana. More info to follow."
ReplyDeleteIf IMPD weren't arresting people for meaningless crimes, clogging the system with waste, there would be jail space for the truly dangerous.
ReplyDeleteWhy the @#%& should the IMPD have to "closely monitor his activities"? This young bastard is 16 freaking years old! How many times was he arrested by IMPD officers only to have the MCPO and juvenile judges turn this piece of shit back loose on the streets of Indianapolis to offend and victimize again? Chief Hite has NO explaining to do but Curry and the judges sure as hell do. What about Juvenile Probation. Think maybe THEY dropped the ball? And nice call for a "lock down and search." ICLU much?
ReplyDeleteHere's another interesting tidbit. The owners of the gun store robbed by Adams and another boy have been ordered by the ATF not to discuss the case with reporters. Why would the ATF care whether the gun store owners discuss a robbery of their store a month ago with reporters? The ATF, of course, was the corrupt federal agency that ran Operation Fast & Furious, the gun-running program under which thousands of high-powered weapons were deliberately put in the hands of violent criminals through the use of straw buyers supposedly so they could track the activities of traffickers, which were later used to kill thousands of Mexicans and a U.S. border patrol agent.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that in times like these everyone jumps to blame IMPD and the prosecutor's office for the short comings of a broken criminal justice system. These men and women go to work everyday and work tireless hours trying to keep the rest of us safe. IMPD is woefully understaffed, to the point where it is plain dangerous. There are just not enough officers to get it done anymore. Meanwhile, prosecutors in Marion County are dealing with laws that are getting weaker and weaker, jurors and judges that seem to be more skeptical than ever, witnesses that often don't want to cooperate, and sentences that never really get served. And the juvenile system is the worst. There simply are no consequences there. IMPD can arrest juveniles all day long, the prosecutors can jump up and down yelling to detain these kids all day long, but they still end up out on the streets. Maybe we should stop blaming police and prosecutors every time something goes wrong and instead figure out how to give them better tools and a better system to work with.
ReplyDeleteThank you for asking for this demand on Curry and Hite. I join you in this request!!!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 9:18- you beat me to the punch. I guess every time a crime happens the police should throw out that pesky 4th amendment and search everyone and everything. And the net this little piece of shit escaped wasn't IMPD's (numerous previous arrest)...it was the Marion County Juvenile Justice Systems!!!
ReplyDeleteWhere is the picture of Police Chief Hite hugging Simeon Adams???
ReplyDeleteSoft judges make hard criminals!
ReplyDeleteIt is time to decide if we need a new Judge in the Juvenile Court next election!!! -From all indications, YES, we do!
The FOP lost its credibility on staffing being the problem after the last big public safety tax increase. What did they choose over hiring new police officers as soon as Ballard got elected? A new contract with pay raises at a time when other employees were seeing their wages frozen or cut. They didn't start this meme up about needing more police officers until the pilfering of public funds by Ballard made it impossible to get pay raises they wanted. Now the FOP is back at the table arguing that we need to raise taxes to hire more police officers. As soon as they get the tax increase they want, they'll be back at the negotiating table arguing for pay raises to make up for the raises they've not been able to get the past couple of years and the staffing issue will fall by the way side. The mayor has bragged that the crime rate has been down every year that he's been in office without hiring more police officers. Someone needs to get their stories straight. We're tired of being lied to about everything.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 8:42 a/k/a Cato: Which attendant let you have internet access? -Now go back to your therapy and medication!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 9:18: I only wish The People of Marion County could hold the Juvenile Probation officers accountable for their recklessness! -But then, I hope the Juvenile Judge is replaced for ineffectiveness!!!
The Marion County Juvenile Court Judge has NOT upheld the oath of office and has NOT PROTECTED the people of this county from violent predators. -and for that negligence she should be accountable! But for The Brethren, she shall have impunity for her reckless disregard for The Oath.