INDIANAPOLIS — In the cities of St. Louis and Indianapolis last year, at least 200 people were murdered. It's a horrific number.
But a grassroots group in Indianapolis is fighting back, proving some shoe leather and some former criminals can stop the violence.
5 On Your Side traveled to the Circle City to meet them. It's part of our year-long series called “Searching for Solutions.” The objective is to find out how other cities are tackling many of the same issues facing St. Louis.
Reverend Charles Harrison delivers the Sunday sermon at Barnes United Methodist Church in Indianapolis. He founded the anti-violence group, Ten Point Coalition in 1999. Four nights a week Pastor Harrison steps away from the pulpit, pounding the pavement with other members. They walk the most dangerous neighborhoods in Indianapolis.
“You guys keepin’ it safe?” asks Harrison. "Keepin’ it safe?”
His sermon in the streets? Engage the troublemakers and stop future violence and retaliation by tracking "hot spots."
“So we only work on what we consider the hot spot areas, so we don’t focus on the whole neighborhood we have to focus on the problem areas.”
“We review it every day. So, for instance, what happened last night will determine what we do tonight. So if there were shots fired, law enforcement will give us the information and we would use it to determine the area we would go into,” said Rev. Harrison.
At night, the group will patrol those areas. They started to see real success when former criminals started stepping up.
“They were the drug dealers, they were the members of the gangs,” said Harrison. They ended up going to prison, they came out of prison, turned their lives around. They were the individuals who wanted to clean up what they had messed up.”
The Ten Point Coalition calls these individuals the OG's. They’re people like Donnie Reynolds.
“So coming out on the streets here from off the west side, I grew up in a housing project here,” said Donnie.
The OG’s started volunteering, walking the streets with Ten Point and their street cred got people talking.
“If you have a gang that's hanging out on the corner, the OG’s went up to them and started engaging in a conversation,” said Rev. Harrison.
And Donnie is no stranger when it comes to the streets of St. Louis, he used to live in north city. He says these dangerous Indy neighborhoods mirror some of our own.
“Oh, I would probably compare that to going up and down Natural Bridge, going up West Florissant, Fairgrounds Park area,” said Donnie.
He believes a Ten Point Coalition could work in North St. Louis. It’s definitely worked in Indianapolis. Since 2016, Ten Point has reduced annual homicide totals in some Indianapolis neighborhoods by 80 to 100 percent.
“Five out of the last 8 years this area has gone 365 days without a murder, in Crown Hill they have gone 3 out of 8 years without a murder,” said Rev. Harrison.
Now, residents not only count on these street guardians, they welcome them.
"I see you’re still putting in the work.” I still put it in,” said Harrison.
Plus, comrades in city hall believe in the mission.
“We had the support of the city police, the city and the prosecutor's office from the very beginning,” said Rev. Harrison.
The statistics prove Ten Point’s success. And news of the coalition’s accomplishments are spreading across the country.
“I have about 28 other cities that have reached out to me from across the country,” said Rev. Harrison.
When asked it St. Louis could reach out, Rev. Harrison said yes.
"We’ll come.”
Rev. Harrison warns there is no silver bullet to reducing violence. He believes it has to be a bottom-up approach, where the community, the churches and law enforcement work together to address both immediate violence and its root causes.