INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — An Indiana lawmaker believes the state may need to get involved to prevent another mass shooting in downtown Indianapolis.

Following Fourth of July celebrations, two teenagers were killed and five others were injured in a mass shooting around the Indianapolis Artsgarden early Saturday morning. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief of Police Chris Bailey said there were hundreds of minors, many armed, roaming the streets unsupervised in the period leading up to the gunshots.

“I think we’ve given the city every opportunity to get the job done right,” State Rep. Andrew Ireland (R-Marion County) told News 8 in an interview.

Ireland is calling for accountability from county prosecutors and judges to convict offenders.

“If you’re not willing to do your job, then we need somebody else to step up,” Ireland said.

Ireland co-authored HEA 1006, now signed into law, establishing a prosecutor review board to investigate complaints against prosecutors and withhold money from “noncompliant” prosecutors failing to enforce criminal laws.

Ireland told News 8 HEA 1006 is a “small step” toward a series of criminal justice reforms he’s advocated for, including granting the governor power to fire prosecutors, breaking up the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office into nine individual office serving the county’s townships, and allowing voters to recall Marion County Superior Court judges.

While telling News 8 “IMPD is doing a great job,” Ireland supports creating a “capital zone” in Indianapolis for the state to directly police.

In a Saturday afternoon news conference, IMPD and city leaders laid out a plan to heighten security downtown by increasing police presence, adding security cameras, and having officers enforce nightly curfews for minors. Though Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett maintained downtown remains the “safest neighborhood in the city.”

The promise to enforce the curfew echos similar statements in the wake of a March 2024 downtown shooting that left seven teenagers injured, but in the months that followed the 2024 shooting, IMPD said it had only cited three minors for curfew violations and enforcement efforts weren’t being tracked.

News 8 reached out to IMPD multiple times after Saturday’s press conference to ask why it stopped enforcing the curfew and how this new effort would be different. A spokesperson said those types of inquiries “are not answered on weekends or during off-duty hours” and promised to follow up on Monday.

Leroy Robinson, a Democrat who chairs the Indianapolis City-County Council’s Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee, claims the Marion County Juvenile Detention Center and Juvenile Family Services are not equipped to handle an influx of minors on weekends.

“This is not just a policy issue — it’s a community challenge, and it will take a community solution,” Robinson said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office said while the curfew law allows police to detain juveniles in violation, because it’s a status offense (not a crime), curfews do not fall under jurisdiction of the prosecutor’s office.

The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office would not comment on Ireland’s claims of a soft approach to violent crimes, but highlighted its success securing convictions, including a 94% murder conviction rate in 2024.

When pressed whether gun reform or increased funding from the state could aid the city’s efforts to tackle violent crime, Ireland doubled down that enforcement of existing laws would solve the problem in his view.

“You can arrest somebody for violating a curfew,” Ireland said. “But if you don’t have a prosecutor that’s actually willing to enforce that at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean much.”

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