As part of a multi-edition effort (here, here and here) to highlight compelling, fair, and informative local television news reporting, today we feature a segment reported by Lauren Kostiuk from WTHR 13, Indianapolis’ local CBS affiliate, on the city’s unarmed safety ambassadors program.
“When it comes to keeping downtown safe, there is a group that’s approaching it in a new way,” Kostiuk writes: “They are called ‘Safety Ambassadors,’ and they act as the ‘eyes and ears’ of Mile Square.” Kostiuk interviews one of the city’s safety ambassadors, a retired military veteran, who sees the job as “keeping the streets of Indianapolis safe” and “giving people a sense of pride for the city they are visiting.”
Kostiuk also interviewed the President & CEO of Downtown Indy, a pro-business alliance, who fully supports the safety ambassador program, calling the program the “connective fiber between the people in downtown and law enforcement.”
Here’s the full news segment:
Related: Last month, Nora Mckeown reported for Spectrum One News in Cleveland that, “as part of Cleveland’s plan to ‘Reimagine Downtown,’ the city [will] hire 20 more safety ambassadors … trained in de-escalation and security who patrol downtown to make people feel safer.” As Mckeown details, the “role is primarily about keeping the community safe, but it’s also about welcoming people downtown, [which means] anything from pushing scooters out of the way of pedestrians on the sidewalk to responding to dispatches to escort[ing] people from one part of downtown to another.”