Monday, July 20, 2009

The bad parts of town...

The local cat box liner has a handy interactive online map showing where people have gotten whacked in Indy so far this year.
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15 comments:

Jay G said...

Okay, so the very first item listed on your "Stuff You Need" ads is "Batman"...

How prophetic...

12:21 PM, July 20, 2009
the pawnbroker said...

cool, but im waiting for google's "streetview" version...upcloseandpersonal street crime and justice from the comfort and safety of my easy chair, and it would make that demographics function moot.

btw, i've tried these online versions as cat box liners...how'd that work out you say? not too gooood...results in a couplea very pissed off -and on- cats.

jtc

wv: splati...the sound you hear when the cats use the cat box with the online liner...

1:26 PM, July 20, 2009
Anonymous said...

Boston has one too.... although its for 2008. Still, the maps along with your suggestions in the other post should keep most people out of harms way. The maps are also good for people visiting a city for the first time trying to figure out what areas to avoid.

1:33 PM, July 20, 2009
Anonymous said...

Figures I forget to put the link in there... http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2008_murders_in_boston/

1:34 PM, July 20, 2009
freddyboomboom said...

Heh... Portland Oregon's Police Bureau does the same thing, and it'll even show you nonviolent crimes like assault and rape and such.

So you can see what kind of neighborhood you live in, or work in...

2:39 PM, July 20, 2009
perlhaqr said...

Looks like the South end of town is the place to be.

3:03 PM, July 20, 2009
Anonymous said...

Look, my old department. Good to see the Office of Planning and Research is doing something more than just hitting the range in the basement at lunch.

For those that take interest in the sociology of Indy:

"Looks like the South end of town is the place to be." Depends on what you are seeking--Southport, Beech Grove, Wannamaker, Acton may be "safe" but yet "tough" areas.

South and west sides of Indy are very settled (little transition) and employed and also the most heavily armed places on earth. Most homicides there are suicides or justifiable or just plain Indiana wierd, e.g., the murder at 10 0'clock of Marion County was just west of Eagle Creek was the sword murder that Tam commented on.

While Indy did not have the violence associated with industrial displacement that other cities did, see John McWhorter's Losing the Race and Winning the Race for a case study on Indianapolis and African-American violence, the it is not immune to the cultural destruction that fatherless families and hip hop have wrought that McWhorter describes. As such most of the violence is concentrated on traditional African-American neighborhoods and "The Swamp" (middle east side of Indy stretching over to Speedway, where mostly Southern immigrants settled seeking work after Depression and WW2--the joke decades ago was: what are the three Rs in the South? Reading, writing and Route 31 North).

The money in Indy is northside (and into Fishers, Carmel, Westfield, etc.), thus the criminality is sandwhiched between wealthier neighborhoods with their increased aggressive police patrols and heavily armed middle class of the West and South sides. Thus, Indy will have a lot of dots along its horizontal axis for many years to come.

Shootin' Buddy

4:31 PM, July 20, 2009
Anonymous said...

Forgot to add:

The map also covers justifiable homicides (e.g. Darren McKinney in Cumberland, about 2 o'clock on the outside of Marion County) which may the Red Star's attempt to cook the books, but at IPD we always included self-defense homicides in our reports.

Shootin' Buddy

4:37 PM, July 20, 2009
James family outpost, Iowa. said...

Yeah, I moved here from Baltimore (shudder) where they had such a map; they averaged about 280 per year for my 2 year stay... Now that I live in Des Moines, they had, uh, four? No, maybe it was six last year.
Baltimore pop. 637,000
Des Moines pop. 556,000
Midwest or bust, indeed.

6:33 PM, July 20, 2009
Ed Foster said...

Jeez, a good weekend in the north end of Hartford could just about equal Indy's rate for the year so far, and it's a tiny place.

The Jamaican mob settles it's differences quickly, and in a headlines prone manner. Three and four murders on a Saturday night, all in the parking lot of one club or another, quite common.

Hartford Metro (Rocky Hill to the Mass. border, the old Hartford County) is a million and a half people, mostly quite well off. But the city itself, which empties by 5:30 p.m. of anyone lighter than intermediate Latino complexion, is, square yard for square yard, one of the most dangerous places in North America.

Half a million during the day, only 120,000 people after dark, and a death rate that would shame heartland cities 8 or 10 times it's size.

I had just gotten back from working for Uncle when the race riots hit north and central Hartford around the end of the Viet Nam unpleasantness.

I saw the National Guard closing off the Bissell bridge, to keep the scores of truckloads of heavily armed farmboys from east of the river on the east side of the river.

The country boys still had some respect for a uniform, and the scary confrontation was talked down by cooler heads, but it was a very near thing.

At the same time, the top VC victory of the week was actually a platoon of inner city badboys blown away by American MP's (not a sea story, one of them is a close friend who is still haunted by it. I will also deny it on a bible to protect him).

Another buddy, just back from an Airborne tour in Germany, was part of a unit tasked to drive the brothers away from the base armory. They had to use bayonettes and butt strokes to do it.

Add in My Lai, which started as an armed mutiny, developed into a gang rape, and ended as a massacre to cover it all up, and I'd say Mr. McWhorter's book was/is spot on, although the connection with rap and hip-hop is a tad sketchy.

Most rap is bought by pimply faced white losers who wish they had a pair. The most popular music among younger blacks I know is reggae, usually old country and western tunes recycled with a carribbean beat.

Admittedly, the kids I know work for a living, so I can't say for certain they're a representative sample of gang-bangers, but still...

8:12 PM, July 20, 2009
Justthisguy said...

Mr. Foster, they may be more sensible in Indy. After all, that's where Doctor Gatling is buried. The Lady Tamara should post a picture of the gravesite, if she would.

9:40 PM, July 20, 2009
rickn8or said...

I've noticed that the red dots give Broad Ripple a wide berth.

Wonder why?

10:44 PM, July 20, 2009
Caleb said...

"Increased aggressive patrols" is a nice way of saying that our tax dollars in Hamilton County pay for a lot of cops to keep the riff-raff out.

7:33 AM, July 21, 2009
Anonymous said...

"I've noticed that the red dots give Broad Ripple a wide berth.

Wonder why?"

What Broad Ripple lacks in Murders it makes up in OWIs, Public Intoxication, Minor in Consumption, Minor in Tavern, Disorderly Conduct. Possession of Marijuana and Public Indecency.

As well, Carl "Ferret Face" Brizzi has instituted a campaign involving off-duty deputy prosecuting attornies patrolling the mean streets of Broad Ripple. These DPAs will rush out of their cars and throw themselves on any visible alcohol; they drink it so criminals do not. Sort of like Elvis and his work of the DEA: every pill he'd eat would be one fewer on the street.

Shootin' Buddy

7:49 AM, July 21, 2009
Ed Foster said...

Cool. A designated drunk, I like that. "Justthisguy", it's Ed. My old man is Mr. Foster, and he's dead.

And Hartford not only has the Colts buried here, but one of the coolest gravestones I've ever seen belongs to James Paris Lee. It's a low, wide stone, with a more than 50% deep full scale bas-relief of an 1895 Lee Navy Straight-Pull.

Also, back in school, I had to help clean out Eugene Reising's house just off Wethersfield Ave. It was tough duty, let me tell you. We gave away most of the stuff in his cellar. Can you say multiple 55 gallon drums filled with pistol and submachinegun parts?

5:14 PM, July 21, 2009

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