INDIANAPOLIS
The annual Indiana Black Expo (IBE) is one of the largest black events in the country. During the several-day event in the summer of 2010, crowds of more than one thousand black IBE-goers emptied into the streets of downtown Indianapolis, where just before 9:30, chaos erupted. It was right after the IBE Summer Celebration.
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: IBE Shootout 1
“Police say eight people were wounded in a burst of gunfire in downtown Indianapolis during the Indiana Black Expo and two more in separate shootings that followed.” There were dozens of fights. Vandalism. One big rolling riot.12
The number of people shot eventually climbed to ten.
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: IBE Shootout 2
De rigueur, a black reporter interviews the white cop who said that young people are out of control, said that it’s “a few people making it bad for everyone.”
Thank God for videotape, which belies just about everything the cop said. Instead of a few people making it bad for everyone, the footage shows fights, anarchy, and rioting through the streets of Indianapolis. But no one is allowed to say it.
The organizer of the event, Amos Brown III, was thankful that in 2011, the IBE was “violence free! The media hype of last year’s tragedy obscured the fact that the thirty-nine previous Expo’s were relatively violence free, too.”13
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: IBE 2006
Relatively? Compared to what? The violence in 2006, the shootings in 2007, the arrests in 2008 and 2009 …?
A few weeks before the big shoot down in 2010, as many as four hundred thousand racing fans gathered at the nearby Indianapolis Speedway in relative tranquility. “On race day state police issued thirty-five tickets: twenty-seven for underage drinking, two for fake identification, and one each for littering, intoxication, false informing, and possession of marijuana.” That’s it.
In the run up to the 2011 Expo, city officials announced a massive increase in police presence for the event. Even so, two weeks before it opened, several people were shot and police broke up several “disturbances” with pepper gas in downtown Indianapolis—all involving groups of black people near the Canal, witnesses say. Even the Indianapolis Star could not ignore it.
“The violence comes at a sensitive time for city officials,” said the Star, because the city officials worried about the image of its downtown and its propensity for violence.
“Although none of the shootings or fights was directly connected to Summer Celebration events or venues, the annual celebration of black culture that attracts more than 200,000 people Downtown during its 11-day run has been inescapably tied to the violence.”14
Despite the record of violence and lawlessness at their events, officials of the Black Expo sponsored a public forum in Indianapolis to protest the shooting of Trayvon Martin.
During the course of the forum, an audience member boldly asked if African-Americans should launch an armed struggle,” wrote panelist Brandon Perry in the Indianapolis Recorder. “I hope I’m wrong about this, but the ‘gasps’ came from a few who seemed to advocate armed conflict against racists or the government.15
Calls for a violent black revolution on the streets of Indianapolis? Who knew?
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Indianapolis Riots
And the violence in Indianapolis continues:
On St. Patrick’s Day of 2012, five black people were shot in downtown Indianapolis following an altercation. In May 2012 a young white couple out for an evening stroll near the downtown canal was assaulted by a mob of seven black men.
Also in May 2012, a resident of Indianapolis posted a video of black people fighting that ended with three people shot and one dead. “It’s like the LA riots out there,” said a video poster known as Justin Beagle.
City officials, local media, and Expo organizers may downplay the lawlessness of downtown Indianapolis, but YouTube is full of rap videos featuring Indianapolis black people reveling in murder, violence, theft, and drug dealing. Even bragging about it.
In 2012, Indianapolis hired a black police chief in the hopes that he might, at least in part, better understand the black mob violence and stop it. It was a response to a special trip Al Sharpton made to Indianapolis where he blasted the mayor for police brutality and the injuries fifteen-year-old Brandon Johnson suffered:
“You would assume that police in Indianapolis aren’t trained on how to restrain people,” Sharpton said, “Four or five of them and they can’t restrain a 15-year-old?” He went on to call the incident an injustice.16
No such luck.
In January 2013 it started again. The Circle Centre Mall—a gleaming display of downtown redevelopment when it opened in 1996—is a multi-story retail center connected by covered walkways to nine hotels and a convention center and was once anchored by Nordstrom.
Today, Nordstrom is gone, as are many of the restaurants and shops. The rest of the mall and the surrounding area is increasingly hazardous—and empty—following a series of black mob riots featuring hundreds of people:
“Two large groups of youth came storming out of the mall, and we overheard them talking about going to get something to eat. Then the next thing we know, one group followed the other group, got about a block and a half down the street and gunshots went off,” said the Rev. Horatio Luster.17
Earlier in the month in the same mall, members of a black mob attacked police officers trying to break up several large fights. Four were arrested and one subdued with a Taser.18 Soon after, downtown Indianapolis looked like an armed camp with hundreds of police offers on duty and even a helicopter flying above. The new police chief talked tough, calling the riots “urban terrorism.”19
But that dissuaded no one.
In March 2013 the black mob skirted this Maginot line and took their chaos to the suburbs. This time they attacked the Castleton Square Mall, the largest and some say nicest shopping district in the state. Local media accounts were eager to downplay the violence and ignore the racial component of the mob.20
The Indianapolis Star said there were two dozen people involved in a fight. The NBC affiliate called it a “teen scuffle.” The local Fox station reported a “fight [broke] out.” But people who were there say the crowds were bigger, more widespread and more dangerous than what the media portrayed. And everyone involved in the fighting, property destruction, and mayhem was black.
The violence and lawlessness began early one Saturday evening when police were called to quell a disturbance involving twenty to fifty black people at a McDonald’s in the mall parking lot. Two guns were brandished during a violent confrontation.21
However, unlike earlier examples of black mob violence in downtown Indianapolis malls this year, there were no gunshots, say police.
Soon after, police were called to the nearby Sears where a large crowd of black people was rampaging through the store knocking over displays and destroying property. By the time police arrived, more than one hundred black people were in the mall food court, fighting. Some were escorted out of the mall and ushered to a waiting bus to return home. Five black people were arrested on various charges related to violence, guns, and resisting arrest.
Not every media voice in Indianapolis is silent, waiting for the violence to go away. There is at least one writer in Indianapolis that is unafraid. Writing in the Indiana Barrister, attorney Abdul Hakim-Shabazz, is out of patience with people who have too much patience for black pathology:
It’s time for some tough love in this town. There is a criminal element in this town that consists primarily of young black men. The recent attacks on the Monon; the perpetrators were young black men. The “Pop It Off Boys” gang; young black men. The most high ridden crime areas of the city, who are the bad guys? Say it with me, they are usually young black men.
This may be painful, but the truth hurts. … There is also something even more wrong when people will read this column and get mad at me and call me a “sellout” or an “Uncl
e Tom” because I was the guy who was brave enough to tell truth.
Indianapolis, you have a problem. Your problem is young black men who are out of control. It’s time to step up and start making examples out of people. Decent citizens black and white should not have to live in fear of urban terrorists. The elderly man who marched for civil rights in the 1950s and 60s should not have to live in fear because some Robin Hoodlum doesn’t know how to honor the social contract. Young people who are trying to do the right thing, shouldn’t have to live in fear because a bunch of cast extras from a Spike Lee film don’t know how to behave.
And I shouldn’t have to write blog posts like this because young black men act like social predators and terrorize the very neighborhoods they live in.22
Compare this with the bumbling explanations on the video from the police administration the day after the IBE shootings. “It’s just a few people who make it bad for everyone,” said Indiana State Trooper Rod Russell. “Unfortunately these situations prevent good people from having good fun.”23
Sometimes you do need a weatherman.
CHARLOTTE
Now this is actually a bit strange. Speed Street in Charlotte is a several day party that precedes the annual Coca Cola 600, a NASCAR event.
The last time I checked Jay Z and Kanye were not singing the praises of white guys driving around all day making left turns. Alright, I have never actually checked it out. But Speed Street had something for everyone. It was supposed to be a way city officials in Charlotte, North Carolina, could show off how well they could handle large crowds. The Democratic National Convention was coming there in 2012, and even though the convention deal had already been signed, they were eager to show potential visitors that Charlotte was a safe gathering place for America’s liberals.
It didn’t turn out that way. The police got quite a workout. “They made 44 arrests -- 33 adults and 11 juveniles … they included eight arrests on drug-related charges; seven for intoxication and disruptive behavior; and five for disorderly conduct.” Thirty to sixty thousand black people rioted, fought, stole, vandalized, and killed a person.24
Twenty-one-year-old Alphonso Spears, who was arrested on misdemeanor charges of resisting a public officer and disorderly conduct, said police tactics escalated the atmosphere. He told the Observer he was walking around looking for his cell phone when an officer ordered him to keep moving. “I said, ‘Don’t put your hands on me.’”
“Everybody was just out there having fun, drinking, a couple of people screaming this, screaming that. When [police] set the mood, then everyone erupted.”
Eighteen-year-old Laquan Hoe also said he was wrongly arrested. Hoe said police stopped him for obstructing a sidewalk when he was waiting for a ride. When he tried to explain to the officer what he was doing, the officer said, “What’d you say?”
“And he locked me up,” said Hoe. “I didn’t know you could be arrested for not walking on a sidewalk.”25
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Speed Street Riots
The video tells one story. The newspapers and city officials blamed it on the youth.
In the end, one person was fatally shot last weekend, another hospitalized with a gunshot wound and 70 arrested uptown in one of the city’s largest mass arrests in recent memory.
On Tuesday, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Chief Rodney Monroe said unrest that followed the Food Lion Speed Street festival caused panic, but insisted officers “never lost control of the uptown.”
“Did we have fights? Yeah, we had fights,” Monroe said. “Did we have disturbances? Yeah, we had disturbances. … But at no time did we ever feel that we lost control of the center city.”
But eyewitnesses, business managers and others interviewed by the Observer described a chaotic scene late Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
On North Tryon Street, more than 50 young people overran a convenience store, “taking everything they could put their hands on,” one worker said. All of them escaped before police arrived, he said.
On College Street, security guards at Fuel Pizza called police multiple times to report “a dozen fights in the streets,” owner Zach Current said.
Some 25,000 to 30,000 people had congregated along Trade and College streets when the trouble started.26
In a way, he was right. After bail was posted, many of those arrested had an explanation about what started the riot: The cops did it, of course.
In the fall of 2011 Charlotte announced it was stepping up its riot training in preparation for the Democratic National Convention in 2012. The Democrats had just announced they were canceling an event at the Speedway and instead were going to send their delegates to the Uptown district.
Nice. Don’t forget to take lots of videos.
Let’s head back out to the Midwest. This time the Ground Zero of racial violence, media complicity, and official denial: Chicago.
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GROUND ZERO: CHICAGO
The Second City has it all: Repeated and visible racial violence.
Denials. Even a Police Chief who blames Sarah Palin.
Really, he does.
Is Chicago worse than Philly?
Known as the Second City, Chicago does not have to stand behind anyone when it comes to racial violence and denial. Chicago doesn’t have the large violent crowds of black people roaming their downtown that characterize the Philadelphia racial violence. (They are getting there, don’t worry.) Chicago’s mobs are smaller, but the incidents are more widespread. And hidden, so let’s call that part a wash. But when it comes to the media and public officials denying, obfuscating and even condoning the behavior, Philadelphia is the second city … way, way, way behind Chicago.
Racial violence is so common in downtown Chicago that now some people call it the “Chicago Intifada.” The flash robs and mobs and black gang violence started soon after Rahm Emmanuel replaced Richard Daley as mayor in February 2011. Seriously, that’s probably just one of those cosmic coincidences.
In April 2011 seventy black people stormed a McDonald’s, creating what newspapers call a “mystery” disturbance. And what cops call nothing at all. Even the Chicago Sun-Times had a problem with that when they learned about it months later:
“Both Chicago Police Department and Campus Safety believe this activity is related to the same group of individuals who have attempted to create havoc in the area before,” wrote Robert Fine, the director of campus security for Loyola and a veteran Chicago cop. “In February, we alerted you to a similar incident in which these ‘Flash Mob Offenders’ allegedly committed thefts within local retail stores around the Water Tower Campus community. The offenders exit the Chicago Red Line stop, they go to various shops or restaurants, usually clothing stores, and then storm the stores, taking as many items as they can carry. The incidents seem to occur most often on weekends, between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.”
Chicago Police say Sunday was no big deal.
“There was a large crowd,” said a CPD spokesman. “Officers of the 18th District went and dispersed them. There were no arrests.”
And the restaurant closing for three hours?
“They voluntarily closed.”
The no arrests part is not surprising — kids hit a store en masse and steal all they can grab, then flee. You can’t arrest everybody.
What they were doing at McDonald’s, where merchandise is not very grabbable, is an enticing mystery. What happened?
The owner of the franchise said, “There’s absolutely nothing I want to add,” and referred me to McDonald’s headquarters.1
That was the first time many people in Chicago had read about the flash mobs. The first time many read they had been happening for quite some time. The article, of course, did not mention the race of the troublemakers. But comments from both white and black readers, as well as subsequent stories, made it clear these incidents of racial violence were perpetrated by black people.
But mention it in the recent mayoral race? Newspaper accounts? No and no.
> Soon after, the mobs got more ambitious: With fifty black people hitting high dollar department and drug stores on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. “They took bottled drinks and sandwiches off the shelves, then ran off.”2
By Memorial Day, increasing numbers of people in Chicago knew they had a problem with racial violence. People in charge felt like they were helpless to do anything about it, and an increasing number of black criminals knew they had an opportunity. Things got so bad that city officials canceled Memorial Day celebrations—at least at one of Chicago’s most popular beaches. They said it had nothing to do with violence and black people systematically assaulting people on that beach during the holiday weekend.
No. Instead officials closed North Avenue Beach because it was hot. Other Chicago beaches stayed open, but North Avenue Beach closed. Did the closing have anything to do with the violence in the neighborhood preceding the holiday? Or reports that thousands of black people were creating a violent atmosphere and fighting on the beach?
Of course not, said the Mayor—who pushed the decision down to his Superintendent of Police, who pushed it down to his watch commander.
“Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago’s top cop, Garry McCarthy, have insisted the action was due to concern about public health and safety because of heat-related illnesses. They said the closure did not have to do with gangs or fights. But the 911 calls include complaints about fights involving dozens of people at Oak Street Beach and North Avenue Beach.” There were no 911 reports of heat exhaustion that day.3
Nothing to do with crime. Certainly nothing to do with race. If it had anything to do with race, would all of those black politicians standing behind the mayor have been nodding their head in agreement?
Few believed it. It was so incredible that even the local CBS affiliate wasn’t buying it:
“You had public safety and you had public health,” Mayor Emanuel said. “There’s no Monday morning quarterbacking.”
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