Sunday, July 26, 2015

Police Shootout At Upscale IUPUI Apartment Complex Leaves Five Injured


UPDATED: Fight involved members of IUPUI basketball team. See update below.
If you read or heard about a police shootout early this morning at an apartment complex and thought it was located somewhere in the hood, think again. This happened at The Tyler, an upscale apartment complex in the 1200 block of Indiana Avenue that caters to IUPUI students. This place offers fully-furnished apartments with 9-foot ceilings, private balconies with great city views, a heated saltwater pool, fitness center, clubhouse, computer center and secured parking. Yet early this morning the place turned into a shooting gallery after IMPD officers were called to respond to a party that had grown out of control according to the apartment complex's on-site security. Here's how the Indianapolis Star described a shootout where police shot five individuals:
A party at an apartment building ended with gunfire early Sunday morning, leaving five people wounded on the near Northwestside.
Officers responded to the 1200 block of Indiana Ave. for the report of a disturbance at about 1:18 a.m., police said.
When they arrived, officers heard gunshots coming from inside of the building. About 150 people had gathered there for an unsanctioned party, police said.
Security officers at the apartment building attempted to breakup the gathering when an altercation in one of the units spilled into the hallway.
As IMPD officers approached the party, they were met by armed individuals who fired their weapons at them.
The officers fired back, striking the shooters.
Two people were taken to Eskenazi Hospital from the scene. They are both in stable condition, police said.
Three people involved in the shooting showed up to the hospital a short time later with gunshot wounds. The vehicle they arrived in is in police custody as the investigation is ongoing, police said.
The officers involved will be placed on administrative leave, police said in a release issued at 5:17 a.m. Sunday morning.

WTHR got this response from residents at The Tyler who were not surprised by the shooting given the non-stop party atmosphere at the complex:
"To me, it sounded like 12 or 13 gunshots," Anthony Garcia said Sunday morning standing outside the Tyler Apartment Complex at 1201 Indiana Avenue near the IUPUI campus. He was visiting a friend in the apartment next to where a party was taking place.
"We went out on the balcony, and that is when we heard all the gunshots. At first, we didn't think it was real," Chase Claussen added. "I thought it was fake and then I started seeing single people come out and then they started flooding out. I saw one person sitting on the stairs and he just collapsed." . . . .
"If you were in there, I guess they are making you stay indoors but they are not letting us in there right now. Walking by door six, it looked like there was a lot of blood on the ground," apartment resident Andrew Jerdonek said minutes after the incident occurred.
The morning after, Jennifer McIntyre didn't know what all had transpired the night before but having lived in the Tyler Apartment Complex for the last three years, she's not surprised.
"Pretty much a party atmosphere. There are a lot of kids running around the hallways drinking, smells like weed and other stuff," McIntyre shared . . . 
This is what the people living in downtown neighborhoods like mine can expect in the coming years after the Ballard administration and our City-County Council provided economic development incentives to politically-connected developers to slap up cheaply-built apartment buildings all over the downtown area that are fueling the bar-hopping, drunken madness that now predominates the popular Mass Ave business district, turning it into the evil twin sister of Broad Ripple over night. It doesn't take many incidents like this one to change a neighborhood. By the way, The Tyler is situated in that expanded downtown TIF district that was supposed to transform the nearby northwest side. It's transforming that old industrial neighborhood alright.

The Tyler is owned by New York-based Candlebrook Properties, LLC, which was founded in 2005 by a Donald Trump wannabe, Neil Rubler. Its website says it has over 15,000 apartment units worth more than $2 billion. The Tyler was originally developed by a West Lafayette company, Trinitas Ventures, which sold The Tyler and several other student-related housing projects it has around the country last November to Candlebrook for $230 million. Trinitas is currently building a $40 million, 11-story apartment complex in downtown Indianapolis on the northeast corner of Michigan and Capital Streets.

UPDATED: WTHR's Steve Jefferson spoke to one of The Tyler's residents today and learned the fight over a missing cell phone that led to the fight involved members of the IUPUI basketball team. Jefferson also says it appeared several students were moving out of the complex today after concluding The Tyler was no longer a safe place to live.

UPDATED II: One of the men arrested in this weekend's shooting was Tyrice-Howard Smith, a 20-year old former standout football player for Pike Township High School according to the Star. Police are still trying to identify others involved in the shooting.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gary, you got it on every count. These "cheaply-built apartment buildings all over the downtown area" with their hideous and tasteless and shoddy exteriors already look like "projects". In my opinion, Milhaus' Tad Miller (formerly of Kosene & Kosene)- is another Marion County GOP campaign donor extraordinaire- and ranks as Indy's newest Cabrini Green builder.

Gary R. Welsh said...

It's funny how these cycles run. When I first moved to Indy, younger people preferred living in the apartment complexes out along the I-465 beltway around the City, particularly on the northwest and northeast sides. Now those apartment complexes have gone to hell and they're moving into the new apartment buildings being slapped up downtown.

Flogger said...

Perhaps that new Star Cub Reporter Suzette (Hack) Hackney can write up a column on the joys of Millennial Living Downtown.

Anonymous said...

Upscale? No, Gary, not even close. Read the Google reviews for both 1201 (former name) and Tyler (current name). I'm guessing the name change was management's way of disassociating with the previous reviews. They even made a lame attempt to act like they cared when the first negative review came through under the new name, then they gave up after ONE attempt. There's a pattern of incompetence here. In a real city, they'd shut these people down or fine them until things improved. Not here. Here it's business as usual. Image is all that matters to the Chubby Marine and the Downtown Cheerleaders. Just a matter of time before it all crumbles. No way in heaven or hell I'd invest a dime in this corrupt cesspool.

Anonymous said...

"When they arrived, officers heard gunshots coming from inside of the building."

Likely a lie. Did the Star demand any proof?

"As IMPD officers approached the party, they were met by armed individuals who fired their weapons at them."

Also, likely a lie. Did the Star demand any proof? Did the Star ask for the body camera video?

"The officers fired back, striking the shooters."

Horrible journalism.

"The officers shot the partygoers" is all that can be truthfully said.

Gary R. Welsh said...

The reviews are bad, but it seems to fit a pattern. Here's a review I found of the Artistry:

"Worst apartment I have every lived in. The management (even though they do try hard) have absolutely no control over the residents and it is like living in a frat house. I can not wait to get out of this place. There are constantly parties that are very loud, trash and bodily fluids in the hallways, and while there are some very friendly people that do live here. It is overall a horrible experience because of those people who are very inconsiderate of their neighbors and it is out of control."

The Cosmopolitan has had very mixed reviews as well with a lot of complaints about constant rate increases. The downtown apartments which once got good reviews change as soon as the newness wears off of them.

Anonymous said...

Face it, this country is completely addicted to ethanol. The alcohol companies targeted higher education for decades, knowing those were our future "leaders" and productive class. Thus, it is very hard to get people who "like to drink" to pass any laws which restricts or hampers the alcohol companies. The push for an anything goes lifestyle, combined with a make-your-own-morals religious belief system, well we have what we are seeing here. Usually areas and places that were trashed were low income places in urban cities. Now we have frats and sorority parties putting those trashy lower income (note: not all lower income people are trashy) people to shame. Look at what they did to that ski resort in Michigan.

It is getting so bad that higher education is coming down hard on the partying. It is completely out-of-control and it is also causing a huge issue in how the youth interact with each other when it comes to intimacy and relationships. Now we are seeing more and more of the productive class group of men not just pull the trigger and marry some girl just because he gets her pregnant, or it is the "right thing to do." Why settle down when sex is so freely available? Of course this is now a disaster according to some, even though the lower income segments of this society have been doing that for a long time.

Humans will always take the easy way out, and now that Uncle Sam is there to play daddy to all the babies in the country, there is no need to be responsible in that aspect. It really isn't all that shocking that some portion of our college aged kids are living a gutter, ghetto lifestyle. It is much easier to go through life not caring, drinking it up, etc..

Anonymous said...

Don't they charge sky high rents for these "glitzy" new complexes? Where is the money coming from that so many high flying millennials can afford to live in these places? I can understand a few parties, but I'd expect more out of someone who can afford 1200 a month for a fancy two bedroom. Certainly not thugs and trash starting fights and firing guns. Or is this just more typical of millennials? I don't remember anyone firing guns at pool parties at riverbend in castleton back in my 20s.

Anonymous said...

So the 1201 (Tyler) was a mess soon after the original developer opened it, and the Ballard administration is letting that same developer build an even bigger complex right down in the heart of downtown?

Anonymous said...

"It's funny how these cycles run. When I first moved to Indy, younger people preferred living in the apartment complexes out along the I-465 beltway around the City, particularly on the northwest and northeast sides."

They still do. Some of the nicest parts of Indy are out those directions.

"Now those apartment complexes have gone to hell and they're moving into the new apartment buildings being slapped up downtown."

Not quite. Yes, a few of the 60's and 70's built apartments around Castleton aren't as fresh or attractive as they used to be, but that's because newer apartments have been built with much more desirable amenities. Castleton and Clearwater are still far and away nicer places than Downtown. Young people are still moving to the 465 belt, and now into Fishers and Zionsville, because these are the best and easiest place to live in Indy.

Some young people are moving Downtown into the new construction, and that's bad. Downtowns are not residential areas. Residential goes in only when commercial doesn't want the land. Nobody's looking to build a skyscraper or corporate headquarters in Indy, so we need to hide the empty lots, and we get lots of three-floor apartments built with other people's money. The buildings are fresh and new, so the supply creates a bit of its own demand.

Soft schools teaching scam loser concepts like "sustainability," "walkability," "density" and the like will only have limited success in keeping people in downtowns. People moved out of downtowns for reasons that the new kids will painfully relearn because they ignored the lessons of the last four generations and hilariously thought they "discovered" a new way to live.

Downtowns are a hassle that a few young kids will waste five years learning.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Ballard! You dropped police to the lowest level in history.

Greg Ballard is a fool! His service to the country should be reduced to company grade for his failures...

Anonymous said...

Say what you want about the Tyler (1201) but the bedbugs are pretty happy living there.

Anonymous said...

A Donald Trump wannabe? Why "Donald Trump"? Trump hasn't a thing to do with Indiana problems. I would say more of a Simon wannabe, Given the gang violence that has emptied out their malls.

MarcioWilges said...

If there was ever a reason for removals, this would be it. I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a neighbourhood where a murder or a shooting has happened!