Indy Chief Questions Security After Hovito Lounge Shooting
INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis Metro Police Chief Chris Bailey addressed two weekend shootings near Hovito Lounge in downtown Indianapolis, calling them preventable and urging bar owners and the community to step up.
“I know it will probably be two in downtown that we want to talk about,” Bailey said on Monday. “Both of them 100% preventable. It’s unfortunate that we find ourselves in this kind of position again. Things are really going well in our city for crime reduction. It doesn’t take much to set us back, a small number of people making some very bad decisions, and here we are.”
Three people were shot inside Hovito Lounge. Investigators recovered two guns, one from a security guard and another with a victim, and believe a third weapon is still missing.
“I have some significant questions about how weapons get into that bar,” Bailey said. “If you say that you have security, that you’re doing pat-downs, are you using wands? There were at least three guns in there. That’s problematic. When you mix booze and guns, we know how volatile those situations can be.”
Police seized the bar’s DVR and are reviewing footage. “No one in the bar heard or saw a disturbance,” Bailey said. “Just suddenly there were shots fired inside the bar, so we still have a lot of questions.”
A separate shooting outside another downtown business is under investigation. “The questions we have in that one, was there something that happened inside the bar and they were pushed out? Did it happen on the street?” he said. “Lots of people were out, everybody’s running their cameras all the time, so maybe someone has video that could point us in the right direction.”
Bailey said there are ongoing talks with bar owners to improve security. “These conversations aren’t just one-off. We try to have them repeatedly, not just with the bars and owners on South Street, but all throughout downtown.”
He urged owners to take responsibility. “There’s only so much we can do, especially with what happens inside of establishments,” Bailey said. “That’s the responsibility of the persons that own that business. It’s also the responsibility of those persons to communicate with each other on problem issues and problem people, so they don’t get kicked out of one bar and go to another bar.”
IMPD has spent about $800,000 this year on downtown bar patrols. “We had extra people out because we had 70,000 kids here from FFA, which went extraordinarily well. We had a Pacers game this weekend as well. All went very well. Now it’s just these incidents. Look at how many times over the past two months we’ve had mass shootings in entertainment and bar districts across the country. We have a problem in this country with conflict resolution.”
Bailey said accountability remains the focus. “This is not the General Assembly’s fault, this is not IMPD’s fault. At the end of the day, the person who pulled the trigger in both of these incidents is the person that’s responsible.”
He added that downtown is still safe. “Downtown continues to be one of our safest neighborhoods, and that’s not going to change my opinion because a couple people make a bad decision,” Bailey said. “Downtown accounts for less than 6% of the crime overall. The individuals that involve themselves in risky behavior, that bring guns to bars, are the problem.”
Bailey said police will keep working with business owners and the community. “We’re going to do everything we can to find them and hold them accountable. We need the community to step forward, we need the community to make better decisions, and we need business owners and operators to look at themselves in the mirror and ask, ‘What part of this do I own, and what can I do better in the future?’”
Indy Chief Questions Security After Hovito Lounge Shooting was originally published on wibc.com
