City leaders say downtown Indianapolis remains safe despite recent violence

INDIANAPOLIS — IMPD wants the public to know that downtown Indianapolis is still a safe place to be following a deadly stabbing Thursday night.

“If in fact that you do have a disagreement, talk it out, it’s called conflict resolution," IMPD downtown district Commander Phil Burton said. "We don’t want anyone to report to any type of violence, whether it's gun violence or knife violence,"

IMPD says that the stabbing happened just after 5 p.m. in the 300 block of N. Meridian Street. That is not far from the Indiana War Memorial.

The stabbing left 24-year-old Taylor George dead.

“We definitely ask the community because we can’t be everywhere all the time to see something say something,” Burton said.

This is the second stabbing to happen this week at the same park.

The first happened Monday night around the same time.

Burton said the city has more than 110 cameras spread out across downtown to make sure they can keep an eye on everything that goes on.

“It’s a place where people go to get food, and now you have people scared to get food,” Ervin Burns said.

Burns said he witnessed Thursday's deadly stabbing. He said he called 911 once he saw the incident take place.

“An old man was in the park taking pictures of the female and she caught him, and the boyfriend took the male's phone and escalated from there,” Burns said.

Burns said he is no stranger to the downtown area. He said he has seen the man multiple times.

“People need to stand up, people need to stand up for everything," Burns said. "Not for themselves — for the next person that is right beside them."

Burton said IMPD added additional officers on the weekend to patrol the downtown district.

Meanwhile, Downtown INDY Inc. Interim President Bob Schultz said that people shouldn’t be afraid to come downtown.

“Downtown is safe. Four percent of all crime of the county happens downtown," Schultz said. "(There were) Terrible incidents that took place, they were in an environment that was created by chaos. We are controlling these events that are happening in other places of downtown,” Schultz added.