Indiana

ANOTHER TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

I told you how I spent part of my weekend going through a box of old papers concerning the 2005 police merger of the Indianapolis Police Department and the Marion County Sheriff’s Department.  Well I found something else in that batch of paper that might help some folks understand that a referedum on consolidation would be a silly idea. 

In Frank Anderson’s September 16, 2005 speech on consolidation he said, “Law enforcement consolidation must be the will of the people.”   Well one way the will of the people is expressed is through their elected officials.  So following that logic, the City-County Council represents the people as their duly elected representatives.  And if and or when the duly elected representatives vote to take control of IMPD from the Sheriff and put it towards the Mayor, they express the will of the people. 

And since the public elected more officials who were in favor of giving IMPD to the Mayor than the Sheriff (granted there were some other issues in there like property taxes and accountability) the Council is exercising the will of the people. 

In fact, on July 7, 2005  Anderson told the Indianapolis Star “the council must decide whether the [consolidation] plan would benefit public safety or produce the financial savings promised by Mayot Bart Peterson, a fellow Democrat.”

Don’t you just love these trips down memory lane and how they keep everyone intellectually honest?

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on January 28, 2008 (boomark / email).