Indianapolis police will begin enforcing curfew law
Police will begin enforcing the state’s curfew law for minors in response to increasing violence among youth in the city.
“Our residents deserve better, our children deserve better and a small number of our children need to be better,” said Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Police Chief Christopher Bailey on Thursday.
The curfew announcement from the police department comes a few days after the shooting of seven minors in downtown Indianapolis Saturday night. The shooting shined a national spotlight on the city’s struggle with youth violence.
Violence among people 17 and younger is one of the few areas of crime that has increased in Indianapolis, despite the number of homicides and shootings going down for the third year in a row.
“The behavior we saw last weekend will not continue,” Bailey said. “It is our duty as parents, as adults and as law enforcement to keep our children safe, alive, out of jail and out of the cemetery.”
What is Indiana’s curfew law for minors?
Indiana’s curfew law, which IMPD will begin enforcing, states children younger than 15 may not be in a public place after 11 p.m. or before 5 a.m. on any day.. The law also states children ages 15-17 may not be in a public place:
between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Saturday
● or Sunday
after 11 p.m. on Sunday - Thursday
●
before 5 a.m. on Monday - Friday
●
Exceptions to the curfew law include:
A juvenile who is accompanied by a
●
parent, guardian or custodian or adult
A juvenile who is accompanied by
●
an adult specified by a parent, guardian or custodian
A juvenile participating in, going to,
●
or returning from work, a school sanctioned activity, a religious event, an emergency involving the protection of a person or property from an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or substantial damage, or an activity involving the exercise of the juveniles engaging in freedom of speech or the right of assembly
A juvenile participating in an activity
● conducted by a nonprofit or governmental entity that provides recreation, education, training or other care under the supervision of an adult
A juvenile participating in an activity
● with the prior written direction of the juvenile’s parent, guardian or custodian
A juvenile traveling from outside
●
Indiana to another location outside Indiana.
How will IMPD officers enforce the curfew?
Officers will issue announcements via public address systems on their patrol cars before curfews take effect if they see a group of kids. The announcements will occur 30 minutes and 15 minutes before curfew, followed by an announcement that the curfew is in effect.
Officers may respond to kids violating the curfew by bringing the minor to a designated safe and secure location. Then officers will attempt to notify the minor’s parent or guardian.
“Parents and guardians will be granted a reasonable amount of time to pick up their child,” reads a news release from the police department. “If contact with a parent or guardian cannot be established, the juvenile will be transported to the juvenile detention center.”
A curfew violation is a status offense, which means it is a non-criminal act.
“My goal is not to take any kids to the juvenile center,” Bailey said. “That’s really not what I want to do.”
Leading up to the curfew taking effect, residents will see an increased presence of officers throughout the city, according to the department. The Office of Public Health and Safety will have representatives in areas frequented by juveniles during the evening hours to engage with them as well.
Curfew enforcement is in response to downtown shooting
Officers first responded to last weekend’s shooting when they heard gunshots shortly after 11:30 p.m. in the first block of West Maryland Street
Six of the people shot were taken to hospitals. Police soon learned a seventh injured person was admitted to Community
Hospital South.
All of the injured, which included two 16-year-old boys, one 16-year-old girl, three 14-year-old girls and one 12-yearold boy, suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Two other minors not directly involved in the shooting were arrested on preliminary resisting charges, police said two days later.
Police have not arrested anyone directly responsible for the shooting.
“The detectives are working nonstop,” Bailey said. “Somebody knows what happened. There’s just too many people down there not to know. Someone has a cell phone video on their phone.”
The police chief encouraged anyone with information on the shooting, who prefers to remain anonymous, to contact Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477
Saturday’s shooting marked a third violent weekend in Indianapolis in a row. A shooting at a Broad Ripple bar March 16 left one man dead and five others injured. The following weekend, a shooting at an east side bar resulted in another death and five people injured, including an IMPD officer.
In a news release, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett stated his support for the curfew. He added it will not be a longterm solution for youth violence in the city.
“It is critical to understand that curfew enforcement will not come at the expense of longer-term solutions to address root causes – the data-driven, community-based strategy that has brought criminal homicides down at record rates,” Hogsett said in the news release.
Information on the curfew will be shared with local school districts to ensure students, staff, parents and guardians have the information they need.
“A curfew will not solve all of our problems, but it is another tool to use to deal with very specific issues wherever they occur,” Bailey said. “It is not our goal to round up our kids and arrest them. We will not be doing mass arrests. We will only take action when we need to, and if our youth are engaged in reckless and disorderly behavior.”
JAKE ALLEN/INDYSTAR