INDIANAPOLIS--Your support, in the form of your tax dollars from the legislature, is needed for the Indiana Crime Gun Task Force to operate. The force, which is a collaboration of police agencies from all over central Indiana, has been in operation for one year and police believe the results make it worth your tax money.
“Officers have seized 369 firearms and made 397 arrests, just in the past year,” said Indianapolis Metro Police Asst. Chief Chris Bailey, at a Tuesday press conference about the task force’s first year in operation.
The force uses scientific methods and information to track guns and crooks. Police take that information to get guns away from prohibited possessors, such as convicted felons, and to arrest people who have the guns illegally and who may be, in some case, responsible for multiple crimes.
LISTEN: Crime Gun Task Force press conference
“That’s when people get into trouble, when people who have no business with a firearm possess a firearm,” said Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett. State Police Superintendent Doug Carter reiterated that statement, mentioning the two police officers shot in the past few weeks, one in Elwood and one in Richmond.
“Neither one of those individuals should… obviously are prohibited. I’ll just leave it at that. Both were prohibited.”
Carter mentioned an expanding network of State Police laboratories, which he said go well with the possibilities of expanding the task force beyond central Indiana.
“The arrests that you’ll hear about are from Fishers. They’re from Plainfield. They’re from Greenwood. They’re from Westfield, Zionsville, Carmel. We’re all in this fight together,” said Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness, recounting how they partnered with police in Indy.
But, the tone of the press conference changed a bit when Bailey took questions about the state’s new permitless carry law.
“I think it’s still to be seen what the exact impact will be,” said Bailey. “I read about two examples in the first weekend that the law was effective where our officers basically had to let seven different guns walk away from two different traffic stops and so we’ll never know whether those guns may or may not have been connected to.”
He said he believes their jobs and the job of the Crime Guns Task Force, has been impeded by the law. Carter and other prominent police officers lobbied against the law, which allows people legally allowed to have guns, to carry without a permit.
“I know I’ve been clear about it and Chief Taylor’s been clear about it and certainly Superintendent Carter, who we stand behind 100 percent, that obviously the investigative techniques and tactics that our investigators have, have been hindered by this. Part of getting a hold of a gun, an illegally-possessed gun, is to see where that gun came from. We see constant stolen guns in our community. But, we also miss opportunities to link these guns through science…to non-fatal shootings and homicide investigations that families are waiting for justice on.”
Bailey said he is certain that investigators will operate within the law and still get the job done.
Carter said that job is to make sure crooks, like the people who shot Indiana cops, do not have the tools they shouldn’t have.
“What they did and how it rocked the conscience of two local communities should allow all of us to take a step back and say, not today.”
