'Something's gotta give': Gov. Braun hints state could intervene over Indy violence

Indianapolis Star

2 days ago

Gov. Mike Braun signaled Tuesday that he's open to some kind of state intervention in Indianapolis if the city itself doesn't "make a change" in response to a recent spate of gun violence, despite criminal homicides being down year-over-year since 2021.
That's what the president of the city's police union has publicly asked for, though specifics are lacking, following nearly a dozen shooting deaths in the first two weekends of July. Braun also declined to specify what kinds of interventions the state government may consider.
"I think it would be a dereliction if you weren't at least talking about it, and then sooner or later seeing if they're going to take action that really shows results, or put your heads together in terms of what that next step might be," he told reporters at the governor's mansion Tuesday. "I'm not going to say what it's going to be. I'm saying it's at the point where something needs to change."
A mass shooting downtown in the early hours of July 5 claimed the lives of two teens, in addition to three others shot and killed across the city over the holiday weekend. This past weekend, at least six people were killed. In response, the city-county council is considering extending the curfew for youth and adding punitive fines for parents whose kids violate curfew.
Rick Snyder, president of the Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police, yesterday indicated this response doesn't go far enough and called upon state elected leaders to "step in."
Already during the July 4 holiday weekend, at the request of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, Braun sent some state troopers to Indianapolis to assist with patrols, weapons recovery and arrests.
Snyder hasn't responded to questions on what else specifically he'd like state leaders to do beyond this kind of operational assistance.
Braun expressed some reluctance to trump local control, saying Indianapolis is "its own political subdivision," but he also said he doesn't want to see things get worse and earn the state headlines that, in his words, resemble those from larger urban areas.
In an interview with IndyStar Wednesday, Senate Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, expressed similar sentiments: vague about what could be done, hesitant to usurp local control, but warning that the state may be willing to take action.
"I'm just open to any conversation about how we can be helpful there. I should tell you, though, if people come to us for help, not everybody probably likes the things we come up with," he said. "I'm not going to say right now exactly what we're going to do, because it's extremely complicated and I need to listen to law enforcement and Rick Snyder and the FOP and figure out what it is exactly they need, because we want to be helpful if and where we can be. "
Braun challenged residents of Indianapolis to "put different people in charge" and think about what things were like in the city nine years ago, referring to the Republican Greg Ballard's mayoral administration.
"When it comes to our state capital, measured to where it was nine years ago, something's got to give," he said.
See the data: Indianapolis homicide tracker 2025
Looking at just one statistic, criminal homicides, there were fewer of them nine years ago than there are in a given year today in Indianapolis. It should be noted, too, that the numbers have steadily increased each year since 2012, and Both the Mayor Greg Ballard and Joe Hogsett administrations, which span this time period, have shattered records.
While in former Mayor Greg Ballard's first term in office, the criminal homicides typically numbered just below 100 per year, the city then broke a record during his second term: 144 criminal homicides in 2015, the most since 1998.
That number has continued to climb. In 2021, a pandemic year, the city saw a historic 249 criminal homicides. The annual numbers have receded since then.
So far this year, Indianapolis police have reported 84 criminal homicides.
This figure is 27% lower than this time last year, according to IMPD data shared with IndyStar. Crime writ large in the downtown neighborhood is down 6% year-to-date.