To Stem a Homicide Surge, Indianapolis Invests $45 Million in Grass-Roots Programs
The New York Times
The impact of those programs still isn’t clear, but the size of Indianapolis’s investment speaks to the urgency of the moment.
INDIANAPOLIS — Shantone Hopkins was sitting outside a doctor’s office last year, feeling the sharp pain from the bullet wound that had severed an artery in her left leg and brimming with anger at the former partner who she said had shot her in a domestic dispute.
As she waited for treatment, Ms. Hopkins recalled, the desire for some form of revenge against her girlfriend of six years lurked in her thoughts. “I thought about violence,” she said in an interview. “I had just been shot, so who doesn’t think about that?”
That is when she was approached by Iwandra Garner from Eskenazi Health, a public hospital network that treats patients from Indianapolis and the surrounding Marion County. Victim advocates like Ms. Garner seek to lower the number of shootings and stabbings by counseling against impulsive retaliation. Eventually, Ms. Garner persuaded Ms. Hopkins to participate in the program, which also offered aid for housing, food and other essential needs.
