Indy10 Black Lives Matter pushes back on $3.3M violence-prevention plan
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Not everyone is in favor of Indianapolis’ latest violence-prevention plan: Indy 10 Black Lives Matter had an intense exchange with Indianapolis councilors Monday night before they approved measure.
The group was told to leave a person who stood up to speak dropped the F-word while asking the City-County Council not to approve the proposal.
“You guys don’t even give a (expletive),” the person said.
That was the moment that led to multiple people being told to leave the City-County Council meeting ahead of a vote to adopt Proposal 182. The proposal includes $3.3 million in public safety with roughly half of it going to IMPD.
Indy 10 Black Lives Matter representatives said they didn’t go to the meeting to cause interruptions, but sometimes disruption amplifies a message.
Jessica Louise, an Indy 10 Black Lives Matter member, was at Monday night’s meeting. She said, “You all too often come into the space and you’re not listening to what people are saying. You’re saying let’s start a community advisory board, let’s make sure this has a civilian majority. But when your constituents are coming to you in that space and confronting you, you’re disregarding it.
Indy Black Lives Matter said the exchange was fueled by passion that stems from feeling ignored. They say, instead of putting more money in to the police, they’d hope to see it go toward community programs to address housing, grocery store access, mental health and more.
The measure ultimately passed 23 to 2 without any amendments.
LeKeisha Jackson, a Democrat on the City-County Council, said, “We got to come to the middle of the road and look at what it is we really want to do both short term and long term.”
One failed amendment called for spending money on systems such as gunshot detection and static license-plater readers.
Paul Annee, a Republican on the City-County Council, said, “We are seeing crime the likes of the city of Indianapolis has never seen in its history.”
A few of the people who spoke against the proposal questioned the value of allocating more money to the police. They said the current approach isn’t working, and other pressing issues need to be addressed to improve public safety.
Indy 10 Black Lives Matter member Louise said, “One of the city counselors talked about being in a food desert. Your people are hungry and you’re talking about giving $1.5 million to the police.”
In addition to those in opposition, several community members who spoke in support of the proposal.