Beans,
Bridge Trolls,
And the ZPD
By Ella Q. Peavler, Web Editor
The lack of crime throughout the town
of Zionsville has earned the city a sixth
place spot on NeighborhoodScout’s list
“100 Safest Cities in America,” indicating
an extremely low number of violent crimes
compared to state and national averages.
While the infrequency of crime in Zions-
ville is certainly not a problem, this data
begs a very interesting question: with such
low crime rates, what sort of calls does the
Zionsville Police Department actually re-
spond to?
The calls the ZPD receive, ranging from
turkeys in the road to weed killer com-
plaints to meddling kids dumping beans on
front porches, can be comical at times, leav-
ing one to ask whether or not these things
are really worth police officers’ time.
One instance of seemingly unnecessary
calls took place this past spring. On the eve-
ning of May 23, the ZPD responded to a call
about an “uncontrollable” but nonviolent
10 year old. Less than two hours later, the
ZPD received another call about the same
10-year-old because he would not listen to
his mother’s demands that he go to bed.
However, it did not stop there. On May 26,
just three days after the initial reports, the
ZPD responded to yet another call about
the same child.
Chief of Zionsville Police Robert Knox con-
ZPD Reports
Thursday, July 20, 7:30 p.m.
Vandalism, 6500 block of Roxbury Pl,
Zionsville, children’s friends have been
dumping cans of beans at her door, left a
can of kidney beans one night and refried
beans another night, BCSO.
6 News
firmed that there are times when ZPD does
get unnecessary calls.
“Honestly sometimes we do wonder why
some folks call us instead of dealing with a
particular situation themselves,” Knox said.
“But we still respond and assist folks the
best we can. It is the nature of the business
we are in. When folks need assistance with
something, we have to keep in mind that
they may not know who to call and since
we are the most visible representatives of
local government, we will get called and are
happy to help out if we can.”
Despite these calls, Knox said, there
are still some days where things are slow
around town and the ZPD officers don’t
have much to do.
“There are the welcome times when
the call volumes are low,” Knox said. “This
gives the officers more time to patrol their
Friday, July 21, 7:46 p.m.
Extra patrol, 10000 block of Holliday Rd,
making sure there are no trolls beneath the
Holliday Road bridge, juveniles located, had
been swimming in a creek, set up a ham-
mock, mothers were contacted, explained to
group we have been having issues out here
and they need to leave the area, want them
to tell their friends this is not a hangout area,
escorted juveniles out of the area.
districts and interact with the community
in various ways.”
One junior student said, however, that he
thinks the ZPD finds too much time to
patrol and can be overly cautious in cer-
tain situations. He explained this opinion
by sharing a story involving a ridiculous
amount of silly string.
“So, my friend was driving and he ran a
stop sign at two in the morning,” the source
said. “Then a ZPD officer started following
him and pulled him over. The officer found
eight bottles of silly string in his car and
so he followed my friend all the way home
just to make sure that he didn’t use the silly
string to prank anybody.”
When the source was asked about what all
that silly string was for, he added that his
friend was, in fact, going to use it to prank
somebody.
Photo by Ella Q. Peavler
Sunday, Aug. 13, 2:14 p.m.
Dispatch call, s. Main Street, woman
very upset and disappointed in her town
for spraying weed killer because it is in
the air so heavy she can practically see it
and she is allergic and she can barely get to
her car and wants to know why there are
no signs posted per OSHA stating they’ve
sprayed the area, ZPD.