- Good afternoon. I am Mayor Carrie Thompson and I have with me Chief DeKoff and Ben from IU who will
- both be speaking this afternoon. We'll give you a briefing on the incidents and what has happened in
- status at this point.
- And then Chief DeKoff and I will take questions at the end of the briefing. It is, of course, an incredibly
- sad day any time there's violence in our community, and any time, especially, there are victims of gun
- violence. We condemn gun violence, unequivocally, in any form. And my thoughts are with those that were
- injured last night
- Little Five is a time when we have lots of visitors in Bloomington, including alumni, as we saw from
- the national championship. We have many visitors in Bloomington for many significant events and protocols
- in place to try to support crowds and keep them safe. That worked incredibly well for the national championship.
- And unfortunately, people brought guns to the party last night. Our police were present throughout the
- weekend on Kirkwood and throughout the city, assisting with proud management and safety. I'm incredibly
- proud, not only of the cooperation between Chief DeKoff's Bloomington Police Department, Ben Hunter
- and the IU Police and the Indiana State Police, but also
- that even with such a violent incident in our community, our cooperative police response remained nonviolent.
- After every large gathering or violent incident, the city does a review. We will be doing that in the
- coming days again, and we're committed to update policies and procedures as needed to increase safety
- at public events.
- It has been suggested that we forbid guns from public gatherings in the future in Bloomington. Unfortunately,
- Indiana gun laws prohibit such action. And if the gun laws remain as they are, anyone can hope and carry.
- We encourage people not to bring guns to gatherings, and we encourage you to speak up
- to those who can change our gun laws. When violence happens in our community, our entire community is
- impacted. Whether you're a resident, a visitor, an alum, or a first responder, this incident may be
- impacting you. I'm grateful to Centerstone, who is offering coordinated crisis response services
- both short-term and long-term to any of those who may be impacted by the shooting last night. I'm going
- to turn things over to Chief DeKoff now. Thank you, Mayor. My name is Mike DeKoff. I'm the Police Chief
- for the City of Bloomington. Last night at approximately 12.25 a.m., Bloomington Police Department officers
- were stationed in the 400 block of East Kirkwood monitoring a large crowd that had gathered
- heard what they believed to be multiple gunshots and the crowd began scattering. Officers immediately
- converged on the area and located multiple wounded individuals. It was originally believed that up to
- nine people had been injured as a result of gunfire, but now we believe that there were five people
- that were actually injured by gunfire and fragments from bullets. The other people we believe
- The individuals currently known to have suffered injuries were a 20-year-old female, an 18-year-old
- female, a 22-year-old female, a 17-year-old female, and a 21-year-old female. All were treated and released
- except one who had been admitted as a stable condition. At this time, we are reviewing cell phone footage
- and video footage
- businesses, it is believed that a fight broke out between two females near the front of the Five Guys
- restaurant on Kirkwood. During the fight, multiple individuals can be seen drawing handguns and it is
- believed that two separate individuals fired their weapons. At that point, everyone began running from
- the scene and officers rushed to the area to begin to look for victims. This investigation remains ongoing and
- the incident is encouraged to call our department and contact Detective Chris Scott at 812-339-4477.
- I want to reiterate what the mayor said about cooperation amongst law enforcement agencies. We had several
- officers stationed in the area to monitor
- The event was going very peaceful until the shots broke out. When we needed assistance, the Indiana
- University Police and the Indiana State Police were there to assist us. And so we do appreciate that
- help. But I want to reiterate, this was not just random gunfire. It was a fight between two people that
- had broke out and the shots were fired.
- We did have people quickly in the area. We were able to get ambulances in the area very quickly to tend
- to those who had been hit. And at this time, we will continue to investigate this and update on the
- status of the young woman who is still in the hospital and update the investigative leads that we have
- as we move forward. Let's turn it over to Superintendent Ben Hunter.
- Thanks, Chief. Good afternoon. My name is Pedro Hunter. I'm the Associate Vice President and Superintendent
- for the IU Police Department. I want to thank the Mayor and the Chief for inviting us here today. We
- joined the IU community and the city of Bloomington in condemning this act of violence. There
- was unprecedented cooperation. And I know that Chief DeKoff and I are on the scene. And I want to extend
- my thanks to the Indiana State Police, the Sheriff's Department, and other law enforcement agencies
- that were there. The IU Police Department and Indiana University stands ready
- City of Bloomington and any resource that we have and availability to assist them and help them in this
- investigation. I would encourage our students or anyone to reach out to the Bloomington Police Department
- if they have video or tips to make sure that Bloomington Police Department gets that information. I
- want to be clear that the victims were not IU students in this incident. We have to confirm that and
- then we'll continue to work with BPD as they move this
- Chief DeKoff and I are happy to take any questions. They are victims. The two females
- I'm not sure exactly who all has been talked to. I know we have talked to a lot of people, but we continue
- to do interviews with people that were in the scene and involved in this. We're not sure what the shooters
- were aiming at, but the people who were injured we do not believe.
- At the gas station, we're not sure what his involvement is. There was a male that had injuries. We're
- not sure where those came from yet. We're continuing that investigation. The shooters were male. I would
- estimate it was probably two to three thousand people.
- Yes, people were just milling about, hanging around. There was, I mean, you could hear music from the
- bars because some of the doors and windows were open, so you could hear that. But it was just really
- a bunch of people just kind of hanging out, walking around, talking to people. We had a lot of people
- coming up to the officers, talking to them. So it was really just kind of a, it wasn't unruly at the
- time. When the gunshots rang out, obviously people fled, and that's when
- I was there. We were probably a half a block away from it. Multiple officers. The crowd was much larger
- last night than it was on Friday night and so it would have become a resource
- our belief was if we tried to move the crowd that that problem would have caused more problems. There
- wasn't really any reason for us to move the crowd because everybody was pretty jovial and happy until the
- So Flock, remember, takes pictures of license plates. And so we don't know that they were in vehicles.
- No, we have no vehicle descriptions. Well, there were no cars down there. We had roads blocked to vehicle
- traffic. We do have video cameras, and we are reviewing that footage, and we're also
- surrounding businesses as well. I don't believe that there were there were anyone else that like fell
- and scraped that went to the hospital. I think the people that went to the hospital were all injured
- from either bullet fragments or actually being shot. We had several individuals come up to us talking
- about injuries
- So we had to, we had to secure the crime scene. So it started small and we just kept pushing people
- back to expand the crime scene because obviously we're looking for weapons, shell casings, things like
- that. And so we just kept pushing the crowdfaker back farther and farther and eventually they just stay
- all around. We did find some
- You know, we welcome visitors all the time to Bloomington and naturally
- Many of our students are also from outside of Bloomington, so it hasn't been confirmed that either the
- shooters or the victims were not actively living in Bloomington. As the mayor of this city, it's my
- job to put in place policies and procedures that keep people safe, and we're committed to doing that
- whether you're a resident
- The brand name flock is being discontinued from use in the city. We are looking at alternatives to that
- technology to ensure that we can still retain a level of safety and accountability that we have.
- reviewing everything that did happen and every protocol that is within our power to ensure safety. Again,
- we want people to feel welcome to come to Bloomington. We want them to be able to celebrate and have
- fun here and the fact of the matter is our gun laws enable anyone to open carry on our streets and there's
- nothing we can do about that. We'll be reviewing everything that happened, anything that we possibly
- can do to improve
- safety we will be doing we're actually only taking questions from the press right now thank you I just
- want to add following up on the preparation this was my 39th little 500 we prepare extensively every
- thinking about this. We've already had conversations this morning about starting the planning earlier
- because of this event. Little 500 brings people from all over the country, alumni come from all over
- the country to come back to Bloomington. I had a lot of people come up to me on the street saying,
- you know, I graduated here 20 years ago and, you know, so people come back to Bloomington for Little
- 500. So what we need to do is we need
- make sure that we get the message out that guns aren't welcome, violence isn't welcome, but coming and
- having a good time is. And so that's the message that we are going to do. We have our police presence.
- Most of the time, everybody was very jovial, having a good time. It's when guns get introduced,
- So we're going to continue to stress that that type of behavior will be dealt with. And that's not what
- we expect from people that come and want to celebrate Little 500. My question comes from the guys. When
- you were looking at video that you've been able to see so far, how many guns do you see? Were there
- multiple people with guns? It's still under investigation, and so I'm not going to talk about that.
- And so we're looking at all video to try to determine who did what. And so I think it would be presumptuous
- of me to say that a certain number of people were involved when we're still looking at all of the evidence.
- Would you be making the names of victims? No. Our policy is we don't name victims.
- answer that part of what I will say is as a past president of the Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police
- and in cooperation with the former superintendent of the Indiana State Police, Doug Carter, we lobbied
- hard at the Indiana legislature against what they passed because we do not believe that everybody is
- a person that should be carrying a gun. So from a law enforcement standpoint, we have done
- that we can to lobby the legislature to change the gun laws and not pass the ones that they did. And
- I'll let the mayor comment on lawsuits. We have not discussed lawsuits.
- If someone injured from a bullet fragment, what happens if a bullet hits concrete or a hard surface?
- It's lead, so it will fragment. And so the velocity that a bullet comes out of a gun is very fast. So
- when it fragments, it still has enough force to cause injury. So they would have, one injury I saw was
- a woman had, it was like a deep cut on the back of her leg. So it would be those types
- The young woman that actually had a gunshot wound, it was, I believe, in her abdomen and it either went
- in through an armpit area and exited or went in through the abdomen and exited through the armpit. I'm
- not quite sure which way it was, but that was the extent of the injury.
- It's still considered a gunshot wound, but it was a fragment from a bullet. I don't know how many shell
- casings. It's not anything we can look at and say, okay, this came from two guns. So obviously the evidence
- will be analyzed and we will try to determine what kind of firearm it was. That's what witnesses have
- to indicate.
- Okay, thank you so much for your time and I really appreciate the press being here to be able to get
- the word out to our residents. Thank you.