Columbus police officers search for evidence after four people were shot on the basketball court at Lincoln Park in Columbus on Tuesday.
Local law enforcement officials say they are concerned about a wave of incidents involving guns in Bartholomew County in recent months, including some involving teenagers.
The incidents, which have included threats, armed robbery, shootings, domestic violence and, in some cases, seemingly common arguments that ended with guns being drawn, have resulted in at least one death in the county so far this year and sent numerous people to hospitals with gunshot wounds and other injuries.
While there have been incidents involving firearms in Bartholomew County in the past, “it just seems constant” now and some of the suspects “tend to be younger,” said Bartholomew County Sheriff Chris Lane.
“It just seems like people don’t understand the consequences of their actions,” Lane said. “…It is very concerning coming from a law enforcement standpoint and just from a citizen standpoint.”
“It seems like people are much more quicker to try to solve the problem with a firearm than in other ways,” Lane said.
Last week, four teens were charged with kidnapping, robbing and beating a 19-year-old male, including allegedly pistol whipping the victim, according to court filings.
Those charges came just days after an 18-year-old Columbus resident was sentenced to serve six months in a work-release program and the remainder of his sentence in home detention for pulling a gun out in the Columbus East High School parking lot and threatening a group of his peers with the weapon.
Two weeks earlier, a double shooting in Hope left a 3-year-old child in critical condition. And a week before that, an 18-year-old Columbus resident is accused of opening fire at Lincoln Park, injuring four people in what police said was a drive-by shooting.
Not long before that, a 20-year-old man shot who claims to have been “playing” with a gun shot and killed a 14-year-old child in Edinburgh and a Bartholomew County woman was allegedly shot and killed by her boyfriend.
At the same time, several local residents have turned to firearms in arguments and disputes. Earlier this year, a dispute related to riding a dirt bike down an alley in Columbus resulted in a loaded shotgun being drawn, while “play wrestling” at a local motorcycle club ended with a loaded gun being pointed at someone’s head, according to court filings.
Last year, a handgun was drawn in Columbus during an argument related to a bicycle, a man was arrested for firing multiple shots in a bar parking lot and domestic disputes and road rage incidents have ended with shots fired.
Local police also have arrested at least nine convicted felons in Bartholomew County so far this year who they have accused of illegally possessing guns, including one individual with prior convictions for armed robbery and domestic violence who allegedly had a stolen AR-15-style rifle. Two other individuals have been arrested in the county this year for allegedly stealing a gun.
“You’ve got 18, 19-year-old kids — I know they’re adults, but in my mind, they’re still young — that can carry a firearm,” Lane said. “I don’t know if they have anyone out here telling them the responsibilities of carrying that firearm. …It just seems like people don’t understand the consequences of their actions.”
CPD Chief Mike Richardson acknowledged that he is concerned about incidents involving firearms, saying “even one (shooting) is too many.” CPD officials said they “try to get out there to educate the community, gun safety classes we put on, offer gun locks.”
By the numbers
Gun violence has been claiming an increasing number of lives in the United States in recent years.
In 2022, the U.S. saw 20,200 gun deaths, including 5,157 teens ages 12 to 17 and 995 children younger than 12, according to the website Gun Violence Archive, which tracks shootings from more than 7,500 law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources. The figure does not include death by suicide.
By comparison, there were 15,139 deaths in the United States in 2016, including 3,154 teens ages 12 to 17 and 665 children younger than 12. Through Friday, shootings had claimed 8,499 lives, including 1,835 teens and 124 children younger than 12.
This past weekend, at least 24 people were shot in Indianapolis, according to WISH-TV, the Republic’s newsgathering partner.
“Nationally, we’re seeing a lot of gun violence,” said Columbus Police Department spokesman Lt. Matt Harris. “We see (reports) regularly out of Indianapolis in regards to the struggles they’re having. But aside from the shooting (in Lincoln Park) a couple weeks ago, we’ve not really had, in the city of Columbus, some of the concerns, problems that some of the other communities are having.”
While most local firearm-related incidents have not resulted in death, there were a total of 11 gun-related deaths in Bartholomew County from Jan. 1, 2022, to this past June 5, including eight gun-related deaths last year, four homicides and seven suicides, according to the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office.
By comparison, South Korea — a country with a population of around 51.7 million — had a nationwide total of 10 gun-related deaths in 2019, according to the University of Sydney’s GunPolicy.org project that compares gun laws and tracks gun deaths and injuries across the world.
What can be done?
An Indiana University expert on gun violence said local communities have some lines of defense against gun violence, though state lawmakers have made it “a heck of a lot harder” for local governments in Indiana to implement their own solutions.
The first two lines of defense are an “individual sense of right and wrong” and having family and peers who can reinforce that sense of right and wrong, said Paul Helmke, a professor of practice at the Indiana University O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, who also is the former president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and served three terms as mayor of Fort Wayne.
“It’s more than the public policy issue,” Helmke said. “…That sense of what’s right and what’s wrong is important, and that’s something that you take signals from what our national leaders do, what we see world leaders do, what we see others do, what the media glorifies, and to the extent that sense of right and wrong is weaker, then you’re going to have more violence. …That puts the pressure on the third line of defense, which is the government and police.”
But at the same time, state law makers have made it easier for people to buy guns, and local communities in Indiana are restricted from enacting gun regulations, Helmke said. In 2011, the Indiana General Assembly passed a law that barred political subdivisions — including cities and counties — from enacting firearm regulations, including ammunition, storage and carrying guns.
Last year, state lawmakers in Indiana passed a law that eliminated Indiana’s handgun permit requirement, allowing allow anyone age 18 or older to carry a handgun in public except for reasons such as having a felony conviction, facing a restraining order from a court or having a dangerous mental illness.
Supporters argued the permit requirement undermined Second Amendment protections by forcing law-abiding citizens to undergo police background checks that can take weeks.
The law’s opponents, including State Police Superintendent Doug Carter, as well as the leaders of the state Fraternal Order of Police, police chiefs association and county prosecutors association, say the new law strips police of a screening tool for identifying dangerous people who shouldn’t have guns.
The bill was co-authored by Rep. Ryan Lauer, R-Columbus, who said previously that he is proud of the law and will “continue to defend our God-given Constitutional rights and freedom.”
In Bartholomew County, law enforcement officials previously told The Republic that the new law makes it more difficult for them to determine if somebody is unlawfully carrying a weapon but now are prepared to adapt.
“What we’ve done as a state and as a society, I think, is completely wrong,” Helmke said. “Instead of trying to make it harder for people with dangerous propensities to get guns and keep guns, we are just encouraging more and more guns to be out there. And as we get more and more guns out there, the statistics that I’ve seen and feel are accurate is that the more guns you have in a place, the more gun violence you’re going to have.”
“And the other catch here is the legislature doesn’t allow local communities like Columbus or Bartholomew County … to do anything on their own about guns,” Helmke added. “They have preempted local communities from trying to reach solutions on their own to deal with gun violence. So, it makes it a heck of a lot harder. …Basically, we have started this arms race where the weapons are getting more and more dangerous and all we’re doing is feeding more and more guns into it, because that’s the approach the legislature seems to want to take.”
Helmke said some potential public policies that could help reduce gun violence include, among others, requiring background checks on all guns sales, requiring people, especially those with children, to have trigger locks or gun safes and making gunowners responsible for crimes committed with their guns unless they report the firearm lost or stolen.
Lane, for his part, said he is hopeful that education and talking about the issue may help.
“I think by just talking about it goes a long way,” Lane said. “By having this discussion, we all learn something. …We just need to emphasize that once that trigger is pulled, we’re not getting that bullet back. It’s gone, and it has got a high probability of causing catastrophic injury and death.”
“You play some video game or war game or whatever, you get shot in that (game) or shoot somebody … you pop back up,” Lane added. “That’s not the way it is in real life. People don’t just pop back up. I think we have got to have a sense of reality of the consequences, and that comes from education and having the discussion.”
