'Like it’s a purge': Fear grips Black residents in Indianapolis ahead of new gun law

After record-breaking homicide years in Indianapolis in 2020 and 2021, overwhelmingly endured by Black neighborhoods, Indiana state legislators voted in March to pass a bill easing gun control restrictions.

Signed into law by Gov. Eric Holcomb the same month, House Bill 1296 – dubbed the "permitless carry bill" – removes the requirement of otherwise legal gun carriers in the state to have a handgun permit. The law becomes effective Friday.

Knowing that violent crime disproportionately impacts Black neighborhoods, residents worry these relaxed gun laws may only make the problem worse.

Many said they await this day with anxiety. And fear.

When the city counted its 100th homicide in June, 81% were a result of gunshots, according to Indianapolis Metropolitan Police data, and 74% of those killed were Black. This tracks with data from 2020, where 183 Black victims accounted for 74.69% of total homicides.

Nearly 40% of Indiana's Black residents live in Indianapolis according to Census data. Many told IndyStar they feel the new gun law is another grim example of state legislators' disregard for Black Hoosiers' wellbeing. They remain uncertain about what comes next.

“It’s scary,” said Dynel Fitzpatrick, a life coach through the Office of Public Health and Safety’s violence reduction team. “This new law is sending the signal to our city, to the ones who don't have guns, ‘hey, go get a gun.’”

Fitzpatrick, 46, opposes the law, even though he was once arrested for carrying a gun without a permit 20 years ago. He called it counterproductive to his current goal of keeping guns off the streets. Through his work with OPHS, he councils those who’ve either faced gun charges or experienced gun trauma and steers them away from violence.

More:How Indianapolis police used the license to carry law after governor signed bill to end it

“The old me,” Fitzpatrick said, “I would’ve been happy.”

But now, he's concerned at the frightening joyfulness rising in the streets ahead of Friday.

"I'm actually seeing that a lot of teenagers (18 and 19-year-olds) are actually eager for July 1," Fitzpatrick said. "They’re waiting." 

Fitzpatrick said he’s not only concerned for his safety and his family’s but for the lives of “everyone.” This includes police officers, who will potentially be forced to encounter more armed men; and the men carrying those guns, who will potentially be heightening the alarm of police more apt to shoot in self-defense.

“It’s about to be a mess for the whole entire city, man,” Fitzpatrick said, “one big mess.”

A grieving grandmother called new gun law 'the worst decision' by lawmakers

Just over four weeks after Holcomb signed the permitless carry bill into law, 18 Hoosiers were shot and killed. Among the dead, 15 were Black victims.

Terry Allen’s 19-year-old grandson was one of them. She recalled that fateful April evening painfully, having arrived at the scene of the crime after his body was already gone.

“A part of my life, a part of my heart, is gone,” Allen, 53, said. “I’ll never be able to see his beautiful smile ever again.”

He was her firstborn grandson but not the first family member Allen said she’s lost to gun violence; experiences that have her in shock over the state’s decision to ease gun access.

“It scares me,” Allen said. “I think it’s one of the worst things they ever came up with. It seems to me like it’s a purge.”

More:Not everyone can carry a firearm starting July 1 in Indiana. Here's what remains illegal

Indiana had the third-highest death rate for Black homicide victims in the U.S. in 2018, according to an analysis last year by the Violence Policy Center. Many of those were linked to guns. The impact of the new law on the state’s future ranking is dismal in Allen’s view.

She fears less gun control means more lives lost and more families subject to tragedy.   

“You never want to bury your family. You never want to bury your children. You never want to bury your grandchildren. And definitely,” Allen said, “you don’t want to go through it through gun violence.”

Community activists feel lawmakers are working against them

Aaron Green is the director of street outreach at VOICES, a local non-profit serving at-risk youth and the founder of his own non-profit, Struggle Made Us.

He’s working to reduce the number of grieving grandmothers losing grandchildren to gunfire and the number of sorrowful sons watching fathers go the same way, like Green’s dad did.

He said his father was shot and killed when Green was just 17 years old.

“I wanted revenge,” Green said, “worse than anything in the world.”

Permitless carry gun bill, vaping tax and more:What Indiana laws go into effect July 1?

Green, 31, thanks God he never got the revenge he sought. But with the men he works with today, those that “have gun charges, have been shot or have had to shoot,” he sees similar angst.

As he draws from his own pain to help rewrite the narratives of would-be shooters, he feels state lawmakers are working against him.

A significant gun control measure has been eliminated simultaneously as homicides from shootings in Indianapolis have increased, from 73.84% in 2019 to 88.57% in 2021, according to IMPD data.

“They got a new, big jail,” Green said, referring to the city's $589-million criminal justice campus built last year. “It seems to me like they’re trying to fill it up.”

He doesn’t believe permits have any impact on the number of guns on the street, which he said are already here in abundance, but he does think it will embolden gun carriers to tote them more freely.

“There's a certain level of fear in the community as far as what this means," Green said. "This just feeds right into the constant trauma that we already experience.”

Moving forward, Green said he’ll have to work harder to emphasize anger management and impulse control among those he works with; an added challenge, Green said, in the face of poverty and other obstacles riddling Black neighborhoods.  

New gun law a 'slap in the face' to Black communities

Black Hoosiers aren’t the only ones concerned about permitless carry.

Most law enforcement from across the state agree that it could be dangerous for police officers and also could jeopardize Hoosier safety. Indiana State Police Superintendent Douglas Carter offered sharp criticism of Republicans who endorsed the bill, before it was signed into law.

IMPD officers say eliminating permit requirements removes a reliable measure for police to identify who is and isn’t lawfully carrying a handgun and that it restrains their ability to seize guns potentially connected to other crimes.

Republican supporters of permitless carry like Rep. Ben Smaltz, R-Auburn – the bill's author – pushed it forward despite concerns. They believed handgun permit requirements were an unnecessary burden to constitutional rights.

"(The law) simply allows law-abiding Hoosiers who are legally allowed to possess a handgun to carry without a government-issued permit," Smaltz said in an emailed statement. "Previously, the state issued permits to anyone who was eligible and applied, but could include long delays. I strongly believe that lawful citizens should be able to use their constitutional right to self-defense, because criminals are not waiting on a government permit."

Smaltz did not respond to additional questions from IndyStar about the law's impact.

Chair of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus, Rep. Robin Shackleford, D-Indianapolis, partly agrees, with one notable caveat. She told IndyStar permitless carry not only enables those that should have guns but also those that shouldn’t.

“People are frustrated and they're fearful,” Shackleford said, “because they don't know how you're going to differentiate.”

Without the requirement of a permit, she said, people will be left to self-regulate.

The law does still have restrictions on who can carry a handgun. And, the option to obtain a gun permit still exists, which experts encourage. 

Shackleford called the law a “slap in the face” to Black communities where she said residents have been asking and advocating for solutions to decrease the presence of guns, but instead were handed the opposite.

“They feel like they totally have not been heard,” Shackleford said, “like there’s no care for our community and our kids that have been victims of homicides.”

Shackleford said the state’s recent signal of apathy toward Black communities follows a common pattern of neglect: economic disinvestment, crumbling infrastructure, low employment, underfunded schools and scarce health services. The compound effect of which Shackleford said is likely to increase crime.

“The law can always be changed,” Shackleford said, with a dose of fleeting optimism. “But I don't know how feasible it is with the current Republicans having a supermajority.

”I do believe it’s going to take more deaths to get them to change their mindset.”

For more information about what the new law means, go here. 

Contact IndyStar reporter Brandon Drenon at 317-517-3340 or BDrenon@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @BrandonDrenon.

Brandon is also a Report for America corps member with the GroundTruth Project, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to supporting the next generation of journalists in the U.S. and around the world.

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