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Downtown business owner’s car damaged in City Market stabbing

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Cindy Hawkins has been serving up goodies at Circle City Sweets shop for 10 years but, lately, she said, the scene at City Market has become soured.

She worries the growing homeless situation and crime has a lot to do with drugs, and a Tuesday stabbing was no exception.

“A man was stabbed on the hood of my car today. There was a large duffel bag that was dropped by my car that our security picked up and turned in that had drugs in it,” Hawkins said Tuesday afternoon.

The car, which was a rental that Hawkins had been driving after she totaled her own last week, was dented in the incident.

She said the past several months have been tough and she feels like she spends more time dealing with issues than in her shop working.

“There might be 50 or 60 people openly using drugs at either plaza and fighting, lots of fighting.”

News 8 has also spoke with other business owners over the past several months who have dealt with similar situations. The owner of Downtown Comics had his car broken into, the owner of Soupremacy was harassed while locking up her store and Tuesday Hawkins was added to that list when her car was damaged and she watched the stabbing victim collapse in the street.

Hawkins said business owners need help and she hopes they’ll get some answers in Mayor Joe Hogsett’s news conference at 11 a.m. Wednesday. The event was set to announce a new initiative aimed at addressing the public health and public safety concerns downtown. Watch it live on WISH-TV, at WISHTV.com and on the WISH-TV app and Facebook page.

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