Indianapolis steps up plan to cut crime 5.6.10

Indianapolis Star 5.6.10

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers spotted a 20-year-old man who appeared to be loitering Wednesday morning at a Far-Eastside apartment complex and found what they say was a stolen AK-47 in his shorts.

Public Safety Director Frank Straub and Police Chief Paul Ciesielski later displayed the gun, holding it up as a prime example of how their new aggressive crime-reduction plan should work.

Under the plan announced Wednesday, patrol officers will make more traffic stops and inquiries about seemingly petty crimes, which they say should lead to more gun and drug seizures and help reduce violent crimes.

"We will be a persistent, tenacious police presence," Ciesielski said. "If I was a criminal, I would turn my guns and drugs in to the local pastor, because otherwise we are going to get you."

The man with the AK-47, Timothy York, was arrested and held Wednesday at the Marion County Jail on preliminary charges of theft, receiving stolen property and criminal trespass. The gun had a modified grip and looked like a long pistol.

The plan announced Wednesday is part of the city's new crime-fighting strategy, announced last month, which stresses cooperation between residents and police. IMPD will flood high-crime areas with extra officers and go after 30 of the city's most notorious criminals in an effort to slow the rate of homicides and violent crimes, Ciesielski said.

Indianapolis has had 47 homicides this year, far ahead of the pace at this time last year.

Ciesielski said he would transfer 130 officers to the Northwest, North and East districts, where they will saturate the three most crime-ridden sections of each district with patrols and arrests. About 45 of the officers will be recruits in training, 21 will be from the criminal intelligence section, 15 will be field training officers and the rest will come from traffic, canine and aviation units.

The officers will aggressively make traffic stops of suspicious cars, Straub said. They also will enforce city codes against loitering, vandalism and other petty crimes that Straub said degrade a neighborhood's well-being.
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Despite the aggressive approach, Ciesielski stressed that police won't act as an occupying force. The department has been talking with community leaders to let them know what's coming, he said.

"We will do it with dignity and respect and go out of our way to meet the good people in a neighborhood," he said. "These officers are not going to drive around and harass law-abiding citizens."

But Ron Gibson, president of the Devington Communities Association on the Northeastside, fears some residents will be harassed. Police identified an area within the association's boundaries -- near 38th Street and Emerson Avenue -- as one of the city's highest crime locales.

"I welcome the police presence," said Gibson, who has said he will run for mayor next year. "But I'm worried about innocent people getting pulled over for no reason. Especially in a minority community, this is something that already happens too much."

Shanda Tabor, 28, who lives in the 400 block of North State Avenue on the Near Eastside, said more police are not the only answer to stopping crime.

"Crime isn't going to stop until good people take their stand," Tabor said. "A cop is only as good as the people who call them. If you want your neighborhood cleaned up, you've got to say something."

Ciesielski said a citywide crackdown on guns and drugs has been under way for a month. In that period, an expanded police Criminal Interdiction Unit has searched 166 vehicles, made 140 arrests, seized 29 guns, 12 automobiles and 70 pounds of drugs and confiscated $28,000.

The officers are uniformed detectives who build drug and gun cases through street-level arrests, said unit Sgt. Paul McDonald.

"We lock them up, but we also try to work our way up the chain through informants and other means if it will get us something better," he said.

Police said illegal guns are driving the homicide rate and have been involved in 85 percent of this year's killings and 12 percent of aggravated assaults.

"Guns illegally possessed and used to further criminal activity are taking the lives of our children and our parents, brothers, sisters, neighbors and friends," Straub said.