Ever growing since it first started in 2021, the Indiana Crime Gun Task Force has been seizing more and more illegal guns and in like manner making more and more arrests.
In 2023 alone, the task force arrested 264 people and took 366 guns off the streets of central Indiana. The task force says all but 31 of those guns were used in some way in a firearm-related crime.
“No one becomes a target of this task force unless they or the weapon they possess have been used at least twice in firearms incidents against our neighbors,” said Asst. IMPD Chief Chris Bailey. “These are violent individuals, and they make themselves known to us by their behavior.”
In a recent sting, 42 people were arrested in Indiana and Arizona. They seized more than 100 firearms, 16 machine gun conversion devices, 72 pounds of fentanyl, 117 pounds of methamphetamine, and 453 pounds of marijuana. He highlighted how gun crimes are also linked to the trafficking of drugs into Indiana.
Since 2021, the task force has expanded to include sheriff’s and police departments throughout the donut counties in central Indiana. There is a desire to go even further.
ATF Special Agent In Charge Daryl McCormick said part of this expansion has been fine-tuning and improving their ballistics and tracing efforts to figure out how criminals are getting their hands on guns.
“10-percent of all the firearms recovered and traced here in Indianapolis have a time to crime less than 90 days that means they purchase them lawfully at a gun store and recovered by law enforcement within 90 days,” he said.
Overall, U.S. Attorney Zachary Myers said the task force is working.
“This intelligence allows us to target the right individuals in the right location to improve community safety,” Myers said. “Gun violence in particular doesn’t just rob us of the victims, it robs the entire community of the feeling of safety and the ability to just go freely about their lives in the community that we all deserve.”
They now hope to see a reduction in crime overall as a result of these efforts. 209 people have been killed by way of homicide in Indianapolis this year, which is down slightly from 2022.
2 comments
The news is not the guns seized. It’s the 264 criminals taken off the streets. Why you might ask? Because the guns all on their own cannot hurt or kill. Each one needs a human to activate it. Inanimate objects always need humans to motivate them. Lets see if Indiana prosecutors and judges can KEEP those criminals off the streets. That is the $64,000 question that wil ultimate stop violence, the human factor.
Indeed, in their photo only one of those guns is “illegal”, the rest were illegally possessed by improper people.
The people are the problem, not the guns.