Why did citys homicide rate decline?
Homicides in Indianapolis plunged to a 16-year low last year, partly because of a sharp focus on the city’s most violent criminals, police say. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department recorded 99 criminal homicides last year. At the start of 2009, Mayor Greg Ballard’s administration set a goal of fewer than 100 homicides — a goal some thought was ambitious and implausible. And for good reason. Last year, 14 fewer homicides were recorded by IMPD than in 2008, and it was the first time since 1993 that Indianapolis had fewer than 100 homicides in a year. (The Indianapolis Star’s homicide database numbers 102 for the city, but that is because it includes three homicides — two officer-involved shootings and a self-defense stabbing — that have since been ruled justifiable by police. However, that total doesn’t include four homicides within Marion County but outside Indianapolis city limits.) It was only a few years ago — 2006 — that 151 people were killed in Marion County. The 13 per
