Doyel: IMPD working to protect 2024 NBA All-Star Game in Indy from K.C.-like mass shooting
INDIANAPOLIS – Four days before the 2024 NBA All-Star Game tips Sunday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, at the most recent major sports party in America, a mass shooting turned the Kansas City Chief’s Super Bowl parade into a tragedy. Twenty-one people were shot and injured. One was killed. In Downtown Kansas City.
Eight months and six days before the 2024 NBA All-Star Saturday Night at Lucas Oil Stadium, at the most recent major NBA party in America, a mass shooting turned the Denver Nuggets’ title-clinching Game 5 win at the 2023 NBA Finals into a tragedy. Ten people were shot and injured. In Downtown Denver.
Anyone else wondering what could happen this weekend at the next major sports party – the next major NBA party – in Downtown Indianapolis?
Better question: How can you not wonder?
Some people will see this as fearmongering, because that’s what some people do. Better not to address a topic like this unless it happens, right? Then again, you saw the reaction in some corners to the Kansas City shooting on Wednesday. It’s the same reaction in some corners every time a mass shooting happens in this country. And a mass shooting happens roughly every 12 hours in the NRA, sorry, the USA:
This isn’t the time to talk about gun control! Respect the victims!
Could we get on your schedule for the most convenient time to discuss this matter? Perhaps next week or next month or wait: After the 2024 elections!
On second thought, no. Let’s talk about it right now. People like me, we’re tired of America bleeding.
IMPD has been preparing for years
This is the part of the story I planned to write about the heroes who will try to keep us safe – IMPD, mainly, but also the FBI and first responders like IFD and EMS personnel – but then I got new IMPD chief Christopher Bailey on the phone Thursday, and this part of the story changed. Turns out, I’m not writing this section. He is.
I asked Bailey the question you’d have asked: The shooting in Kansas City four days ago, what impact did that have on your plans? He hesitated about, oh, zero seconds before unspooling the most impressive, most comprehensive answer you’ve ever heard.
“These are the type of things we’re always preparing for at a major event,” is how IMPD Chief Christopher Bailey starts his answer. “If you were to talk to experts at the state or national level, they’ll tell you these type of events worry organizers the most. (The Kansas City shooting) wasn’t – as far as we know – some organized group. It could be somebody with a gun who got into a beef with somebody, and fired into the crowd.
“We’re watching, monitoring to see what new information comes out from Kansas City. I’m sure our partners at the FBI are engaged as well. There may be information they know that we don’t know at this point. Our people will act on that and change plans accordingly, if we need to do that.
“I’m happy with what I’m seeing from teams that have been planning for multiple years – and multiple reps. We host events all the time (Downtown). We’ll be prepared to pivot if we have to. We have hundreds of officers out this weekend at different times and in different spots – some that people will see, but most they won’t.
“We have multiple cameras set up through our city-owned public safety network, and a lot of cameras in the Business Link or B-Link program, where businesses allow us access to their outer-facing cameras. Our emergency center at Shadeland, a real-time crime center open 12 hours a day, has analysts watching camera feeds and paying attention to social media to get our officers real-time intelligence to act on. Our officers can access B-Link in their cars. That’s close to 200 cameras between the two (systems), and we’ll have access to all Gainbridge Fieldhouse cameras and the canal area. Apartment buildings Downtown have cameras, and we’ll be able to watch remotely.
“Our SWAT team will have multiple quick-action responders out on ATVs – and in places you won’t see – to react to an active shooter if it occurs.
“We have a great partnership with (IFD) and EMS for mass casualties, and have daily intelligence reports.
“A situation like we saw in Kansas City, we’ll react to it unless we have prior knowledge or get information to try to stop it. That’s why it’s so important for people out there to be our eyes and ears. See something, say something. You saw somebody (in Kansas City) tackle a suspect in the crowd. I saw a lady pick up a gun. You saw spectators say, ‘Something’s not right,’ and took action on themselves. I’m not advocating that, but it’s important to be our eyes and ears at the same time.
“On a typical Downtown Saturday night in the summer, we’re watching for adults who don’t know how to drink responsibly. We watch those cameras multiple times and see people kicked out of bars. We’ve seen someone go to a car and grab a gun, and were able to intervene before something terrible happens. We’ve seen a juvenile stuff a rifle under his pants on the canal, and responded.
“We’ll have multiple drones up for the first time. We’ve had them before, but not to the extent now. We own 10-plus, and are buying 30 more this year. We have a State Police helicopter standing by for us at the Greenwood Airport. We’ll be watching rooftops for snipers.
“Everything we can be prepared for, we’re prepared for.”
Is it possible to feel a whole lot better – and a whole lot worse?
Mass shootings at a school, mall and workplace here
As for me, I’d lived in nine states before seeing my first machine gun. That happened in my 10th state, here in Indiana. It was in the closet of a 95-year-old man in Greenwood. He and I were friends at the time, and he brought this cruel-looking monstrosity into the living room and asked if knew what it was.
Looked to me like a metallic King Cobra.
Why do you have that? I remember blurting that first.
“Because I can!” he said giddily, holding up the Uzi like a chalice.
Why should you be able to have that? I remember blurting that next.
“Because the Second Amendment is what makes America the greatest country on earth,” he said.
Huh. And here I thought the Second Amendment made America the deadliest country on earth. It was written with the purest of intentions in 1776, to protect frontier Americans should our democracy go astray, but has been bastardized and warped by the NRA and their tools in government to the point where we have people like a 95-year-old man in Greenwood with an Uzi in his closet.
Scarier people than that have machine guns, too.
This is fearmongering only if you’re the scared one. Yeah, you. You’re scared of some imaginary someone invading your imaginary castle, and merely a deadly weapon won’t do. You want the deadliest weapon ever made, and of course, the NRA wants you to have one. If the NRA had its way, we’d be purchasing machine guns at Walmart. Waiting period? Sure. Those would be some long lines.
Lots of people are terrified of some nameless, faceless Other. Either that, or lots of people are lying about their motivations. They know their Glock or Ruger or 12-gauge shotgun or nickel-plated Colt .45 would do the trick, but they want more. They’re like that old man in Greenwood, pulling an Uzi from his closet the way a child pulls a pet snake from its cage: Childlike. Gleeful.
Guns are easy to get in this country. A seventh-grader in Noblesville brought two handguns to school in 2018 – a .45 caliber, and a .22 with an attached silencer, because home safety requires a silencer – and opened fire. He buried a bullet in a female classmate before teacher Jason Seaman bull-rushed him, putting himself between the shooter and the rest of the kids in his Noblesville West Middle School classroom. The girl suffered serious injuries and Mr. Seaman took three bullets, but nobody died. That’s what goes for a good ending to a school shooting story.
Guns are so easy to get. A 20-year-old man with a juvenile record and recent eviction brought a Sig Sauer model M400 5.56 caliber rifle to the Greenwood Mall in July 2022, walked into the food court and opened fire. While parents of mall visitors and employees were outside crying or praying or both – I was one of them – police were securing a scene where the gunman murdered three people before being killed by a mallgoer who happened to bring his own Glock 19 to the mall that day. That’s what goes for a “could’ve been so much worse” ending to a mass shooting story.
So easy to get. A man with known mental health issues – he’d told people of wanting to commit “suicide by cop” – was able to buy two AR 15-style rifles and bring them to an Indianapolis FedEx facility in April 2021 and kill eight people. This is what goes for a normal town in America, a place where a school shooting is followed by a disgruntled employee shooting is followed by a mall shooting.
Months ago in Denver, days ago in Kansas City, the most American story ever broke out in a hail of gunfire. This weekend in an Indianapolis metro area that has seen too many of those stories, hundreds of local law enforcement personnel – police and FBI – will do what they can to keep it from happening here. They will be flying multiple drones and studying dozens of cameras and watching hundreds of social media feeds, and they will be walking among us in uniforms and street clothes.
Look at the person walking on your left, or the one on your right. Probably a harmless fan or partygoer, like yourself. Could be police. Could be FBI. Could be someone else entirely, someone there to write another chapter of our uniquely American tragedy in your blood.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Super Bowl parade shooting has IMPD on high alert at NBA All-Star Game
