How dangerous is Indianapolis (Marion, Washington: sale, crime rates, houses)
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Actually the northside of dowtown (up to 16th st) is one of the nicer parts of downtown. (Old Northside, St. Joseph, Chatham Arch areas). I wouldn't really consider 38th to be part of DT.. It's really mid-town. And can be a total "mad max" type area.. haha.
I also live just south of DT as well so I'm in the same boat as you as far as my neighbors.. However more "normals" are making their way to the area and it definitely on it's way up. I bought my home anticipating this and things to be going as planned as far as development and property values.. I love being so close to DT and not having to drive everywhere I want to go.
You are right, 38th and college is not downtown, I just get so used to my friends in Fishers and Carmel calling it downtown that I slipped! I currently rent the house I live in on the southside of downtown...but I might buy in the area in the next year. My landlord wants me to buy the house I am renting but I have noticed too many "issues" with the house itself since living there, plus I think he has it way overpriced. I love my view of the skyline though.
All I can say is crime is very bad in Indianapolis, and you may want to check out the statistics for the last 2 years before moving to this city! I know how it is to hear negative comments when you really want to relocate to an area because I myself am looking to relocate and I know sometimes people are bitter about different things or whatever, but I have lived here all my life and to see this city grow well and then in the last 2 years what it has become is devastating, and when crime is rampid in a city, being a new resident doesnt make it better.
All I can say is crime is very bad in Indianapolis, and you may want to check out the statistics for the last 2 years before moving to this city! I know how it is to hear negative comments when you really want to relocate to an area because I myself am looking to relocate and I know sometimes people are bitter about different things or whatever, but I have lived here all my life and to see this city grow well and then in the last 2 years what it has become is devastating, and when crime is rampid in a city, being a new resident doesnt make it better.
Indianapolis crime is no worse than comparable cities of its size. Don't fall for the "oh my God, Indianapolis is turning into Detroit" crap, some people are scared of their own shadow on these message boards.
An Indianapolis man and two cohorts from California face felony drug charges after a marijuana bust in Marion County led to the three PCP dealers in Fishers, authorities said.
Timothy Loynes, 27, and Los Angeles residents Daviyon Tart, 28, and Michael White, 41, were charged Tuesday in Hamilton Superior Court with possessing and dealing a controlled substance, specifically PCP.
The charges are tied to their arrest last week at a home in the Pleasant View subdivision, when Indianapolis narcotics officers and Fishers police served a search warrant in the 13000 block of Coyote Run.
Loynes also was charged with escape. Authorities said he had been sentenced to home detention in a Marion County case and should not have been outside his house when he was found at the Coyote Run address.
“Basically, it started with a tip about a marijuana smell coming out of a home on the Northeastside,” explained Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Sgt. Matthew Mount.
“Police went there, they could smell the marijuana, they got a search warrant, and they found 200 to 300 pounds of marijuana inside.”
Mount said they also found paperwork bearing the name of Timothy Loynes, which prompted investigators to monitor his activity. On Nov. 8, five days later, they followed him to the Coyote Run address and alerted Fishers police.
Suspecting there was marijuana inside, Mount said, police obtained a search warrant and entered the home.
“There were no issues,” Fishers Sgt. Ed Gebhart said of the entry by a tactical response team and the quick cooperation of the three suspects inside.
Besides the men, police found nearly a gallon of liquid PCP, or Phencyclidine. The illegally manufactured drug is often sold as tablets or powder and is also known as angel dust.
In addition to the narcotic, authorities seized more than $15,000 and a money counter, a laptop computer, a Blackberry cell phone, two watches, two portable LCD televisions and a stolen handgun.
The loaded 9mm Beretta, which was linked to a stolen gun report in Marion County, was found in a freezer.
A 2007 Cadillac Escalade driven by one of the L.A. suspects also was confiscated. In his reports, IMPD Detective Scott A. Wolfe said the vehicle and cash were seized under forfeiture laws governing assets of an illegal enterprise.
While searching the Fishers home, Wolfe said, the three men were asked about their connection to the house.
“I asked Mr. Loynes, Mr. White and Mr. Tart if they knew who lived at the residence, and each stated they did not know,” said Wolfe.
“It’s a rental,” said Fishers Sgt. Gebhart, who added that investigation is continuing to determine if any of the three suspects had control of the property and, perhaps, the stolen gun.
Police in Carmel are looking for thieves who pilfered the contents of as many as 18 cars, including two taken on joy rides that damaged the vehicles and a number of mailboxes they hit.
"We think it was the same group of people that committed most of those," Lt. Jeff Horner said of the thefts. "Most of those vehicles were unlocked. We had two that were stolen because the keys were left inside."
Horner said the thefts probably began late Sunday and spilled into the early-morning hours Monday, when homeowners leaving for work discovered their cars had been ransacked or their mailboxes vandalized.
"They hit several concentrated areas, but it wasn't like one area of town," Horner said of the thieves. "They were all over the place, really."
In the process, Horner said, a 2001 Silver Ford Explorer was taken from an Arbor Drive residence and a 2004 Green Lincoln Aviator was stolen from a house on Sycamore Road. Both were recovered, and both were damaged from apparent intentional crashes into "a bunch of mailboxes," Horner said.
Police dispatch reports show 24 reports of theft by 8 p.m. Monday, with most being called in before noon.
"Our detectives are looking to see what leads they can follow up on," Horner said. "They said most of the vehicles didn't have any damage, so they believe they were unlocked.
"We're thinking it was mainly opportunity-type crimes, where they were going around and checking doors."
Horner said that money, CDs and various "loose stuff" were taken from the vehicles. He said detectives were talking to residents of targeted areas to see if anyone saw anything that might help identify those responsible.
hold on now!! don't look at the stats read the news!!
i have lived in Indianapolis and Indiana all my life what the stats don't tell u is the murder rate is for only the "incorporated" city of indianapolis. if someone could complile the stats for Marion county as a whole, it would tell a different story!!
Anybody that lives there knows that crime doesn't have any particular boundries, there is gaining crime of all kinds in small towns of carmel, fishers, etc etc. (especially theft and burglaries)
heres a news qoute: Indy's Murder Rate Increase Among Top In The Nation
While a number of major cities across America experienced an increase in the number of murders during 2006 after nearly a decade of decline, Indianapolis' increase easily outpaces most other cities. Interestingly, an AP story by Karen Matthews on the subject noticeably omits Indianapolis from the discussion despite its sharp increase. I'm not sure whether her omission is a good or bad thing.
As of today, Indianapolis has recorded 153 murders, a 54% increase over last year and the most since 1998, when the city recorded a record 162 murders according to the Star's Will Higgins. Here's how Indianapolis compares to other cities based on the AP story:
Oakland (57%)
Indianapolis (54%)
New Haven, Connecticut (53%)
Houston (15%)
New York (10%)
Philadelphia (6%)
Cincinnati (5%)
Chicago (3.3%)
Los Angeles (-4%)
San Francisco (-15%)
New Orleans (-36%)
Why the increase? The AP story writes, "[G]angs, the easy availability of illegal guns, a disturbing tendency among young people to pull guns when they do not get the respect they demand, and, in Houston at least, an influx of Hurricane Katrina evacuees." I'm surprised the story doesn't mention drugs, which I think are driving the increasing number of homicides.
In Higgins' story, he notes that a disproportionate number of Indianapolis' murder victims, 54%, were black men. He also reports a sharp increase in the number of murders taking place in the suburban reaches of the county "in neighborhoods with a reputation for being relatively safe." Higgins' story doesn't mention drugs as a contributing factor. He does note a large number of homicides occurred during the commission of a robbery. Robberies are often associated with drug users who are trying to feed their habit.
What is clear is Indianapolis' rate is increasing dramatically compared to other U.S. cities. Mayor Peterson and other city leaders simply can't blame the problem on a growing, nationwide problem. I think the problem is Indianapolis has become a major drug distribution center. That's a problem with which Mayor Peterson and Indianapolis law enforcement will have to come to grips if they want to successfully address the problem.
The hardest thing for the newcomer to adjust to is the complete patchwork nature of the neighborhood boundaries. At least it was for me. You can be walking down the street in a posh neighborhood and then literally from one block to the next witness an immediate and startling decline. A perfect example is going southbound on Meridian. North of 38th St. are all homes probably ranging well into the six digits, but immediately after crossing 38th it's nothing but old tenement projects with the usual sketchy looking individuals just kind of hanging around ominously with no particular purpose in mind. Sure, I've walked down that stretch numerous times and never felt endangered, but that was as much due to the heavy traffic in the area as any kind of affinity with the neighborhood. Get off of Meridian onto one of the side streets and you'll see a bit of a different picture. There was a story in the Star a few weeks back about 3 different murders taking place within blocks of each other just off 38th & Meridian.
Anyway, that's not to say that ALL neighborhoods are like that, but the fact remains that regardless of where you live you're bound to find yourself at least passing through a shady 'hood from time to time... possibly even everyday. This shouldn't be an issue if you're driving from, say, Carmel, but if you're planning on doing a lot of walking or relying on public transportation you can't afford to be too squeamish. Like anyplace else, crime follows the poverty, but outside of the suburbs, once you get inside the city itself the good and bad neighborhoods pretty much jut right up against each other in seemingly random fashion.
Now as for the homeless people downtown, there is a pretty significant number of them and they can be fairly aggressive in their panhandling attempts, but I've never seen anyone actually physically attacked by one of them. I'm sure it goes on, esp. at night, but I don't believe downtown Indy is any less safe in that regard than other cities with a homeless problem. I don't live downtown, and am usually out of there by 9:00 at night or so, but I can believe that people would be a little uneasy walking around late at night, because the bars are fairly spread out with only a few exceptions, and the areas between those bars can be pretty deserted. I live in Broad Ripple, where the bars are much more concentrated and there are no sketchy areas to speak of, but the nightlife scene there is notably younger and definitely not what everyone is looking for (most people who go out on a regular basis are either staunchly for Broad Ripple or for downtown, if not their local neighborhood itself). Otherwise it's pretty quaint and self contained and I rarely get outside of my own neighborhood on non-work days.
Indianapolis crime is no worse than comparable cities of its size. Don't fall for the "oh my God, Indianapolis is turning into Detroit" crap, some people are scared of their own shadow on these message boards.
This is pretty much true.
Indianapolis is a little better then middle of all cities of over 700k in crime rate, and amongst cities under 1.5 million but over 700k, it ranks in even a higher percentile.
Amongst mid west cities over 700k (including the area from Tennessee/Ohio/Michigan out to Colorado, including Texas), only San Antonio is safer, but not by leaps and bounds.
Truth is, you probably cant hope for much better from a city that size outside of California
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