The Weekend Report
I’m writing this on Sunday night. My son is in town so I’m doing my most fun job, being a parent. However, I still wanted to jot down a few things for your FYI.
Indiana Black Exposition
I was downtown Saturday night and felt like I was on the set of a really bad Spike Lee film. Of the 10 days of Indiana Black Expo, the only time where there were real problems was Saturday night after 9 p.m. The streets were filled with juveniles and teenagers who had no business being out. They couldn’t go into the bars and they couldn’t afford to eat in the restaurants (Steak N’ Shake notwithstanding) so many of them just hung out. When you have that many people congested in one area with nothing else to do but hang out until 4 a.m., the situation is just begging for trouble. There were two reported shootings and one person was charged with attempted murder. Apart from that, I think I would like to see the men and women in blue and brown do something else than play babysitter. Indiana Black Expo seriously needs to think about canceling its Saturday night event. It leads to nothing but trouble and headache for a lot of people and tend to put a black mark, pardon the pun, on an otherwise valuable event to the Indianapolis community.
Council of Crime
An ordinance will be introduced at Monday night’s Indianapolis City-County Council meeting to help alleviate the jail overcrowding problem. The plan authored by Prosecutor Carl Brizzi and introduced by Republican leader Phil Borst would call for renting 250 jail beds from New Castle and the money would come from the County’s consolidated fund.
Already criticism is being levied at the plan, even though it took the media to yell loud enough for the proposal to get a fair hearing in the first place. I think it’s odd some folks on one side of isle bring up dollars and affordability of the plan and none of them stood up and spoke out on the Sheriff and his $50,000 raise that he later had to return. Stay tuned.
