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.