Indianapolis councilman Ron Gibson said he was awakened early Monday when someone fired 13 shots at the front door of his home and left a note reading “No Data Centers” on the doorstep. Gibson said he and his 8-year-old son were not harmed in the incident, which he described as occurring around 12:45 a.m. The bullets, he said, struck just steps from where his son had been playing with Legos the day before.
Gibson said the episode left him deeply unsettled and described it as more than an attack on property, saying it endangered his child and disrupted the safety of the neighborhood. On Monday, he also said he would continue serving residents “with integrity and respect for all voices.”
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police said officers responded to a home on East 41st Street after 9 a.m. Monday and found evidence that gunshots had been fired at the residence. Police said no injuries were reported and that investigators believe it was an isolated, targeted incident, adding that the FBI was assisting the investigation.
The attack occurred as data centers have increasingly come under scrutiny and, in some cases, have been targeted by people motivated by anti-tech, anti-government and pro-environment narratives, according to Jordyn Abrams, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. Abrams said local conversations about data centers have, in her view, increasingly turned them into a symbol for grievances that span the political spectrum.
Among the concerns discussed around data centers are their large energy consumption and water use, which consumer advocates say could drive up electric rates and deplete wells. The advocates also warn that some developers can structure confidential power deals with utilities in ways that may make it unclear whether the costs of operating data centers are being paid by operators or shifted to ratepayers.
Last week, a rezoning petition for a project by Metrobloks, a data center developer, was approved by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Development Commission in Gibson’s district, according to the report. Area residents and leaders who opposed the project attended the hearing and raised concerns about potential impacts on the community, and Gibson supported the commission’s decision in a statement last week.
In that statement, Gibson said the site had remained underutilized for years and that the commission’s action was an important step toward bringing it back into productive use in a way that benefits both the surrounding neighborhood and the city. He added that, when the petition comes before the full council, he does not intend to call it down.