INDIANAPOLIS — Four times since the start of 2023, the Marion County Prosecutor has filed felony neglect charges against adults who made firearms available to children who later killed or injured themselves with accidental gunfire.
A decision on another case from late February is pending.
”There’s nothing we can do to a parent after they have lost a child, and in particular, when their conduct had contributed to the loss of that child,” Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said. “So, there’s nothing that the criminal justice system can do that’s worse to that parent than the loss of their child. That means that we still have an obligation to the community.
“And we have to deter this type of behavior, and we have to send a strong message that the law does say that, if you are going to have this firearm, and your child gets ahold of it, and somebody is seriously injured or loses their life, that there’s going to be criminal consequences. So, for us there’s definitely two obligations there, but at the end of the day, it’s in the community’s interest that we send a clear message that this type of conduct is not acceptable because it’s 100% preventable and hopefully stories like this will encourage people to safely store their firearms.”
Mears added that the number of juvenile gun cases filed by his office has skyrocketed in the last 15 months.
”In the last calendar year, we filed 418 cases involving young people and guns out at juvenile court,” he said. ”The No. 1 case that we filed out in our juvenile court last year has been dangerous possession of a firearm. That means a young person less than 18 years of age with a gun. For as long as I can remember, the case most-filed out in juvenile was theft, and then in the last two years, it’s been gun charges.”
Mears said those statistics do not include the cases of juveniles waived into Superior Court for multiple gun charges or more serious felonies.
”Sometimes, its family members who have been prosecuted because we knew they were involved in the initial purchase of that firearm and then allowed their child to have access to that gun,” Mears said. “I think you’re gonna see more and more of those prosecutions because as more and more things are being put on social media, people are texting about these issues. So, when we get ahold of individuals’ phones, we’re going back to figure out, ‘OK, where did this initial gun come from? How did this 15-year-old get their hands on this gun?’
”The sad reality is there are just too many guns available in our community, and it’s just too easy for young people to get their hands on those firearms. The Legislature can send a very clear, common-sense message to the community that, if you own or possess a firearm, it is your duty, it is your obligation to take care of that and make sure it doesn’t get into the hands of a young person or a prohibited person.”
Mears said in 2023 his office went 40-4 in prosecuting homicide cases, losing four trials as a result of self-defense not guilty verdicts by jurors.
”So many people are walking around with firearms, and it has certainly changed peoples’ perspectives,” Mears said. “And I think that’s one of the things that we have had to adjust to is the jury’s expectations or what they believe to be reasonable under the circumstances has certainly shifted over the last three or four years because so many people possess firearms.”
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