County awarded grant for gun crime prosecutor

Gus Pearcy, The Lebanon Reporter, Ind.
·2 min read

Apr. 2—The Boone County Prosecutor received a five-year grant for a new deputy prosecutor who will specifically handle firearm-related cases.

"Crimes where guns are involved in some way have increased in Boone County in the last five years," Prosecutor Kent Eastwood said. "This grant will also increase the ability of the office to prosecute illegal gun possession crime as well as help coordinate the training and collecting of gun forensic evidence."

Crimes with guns involved have jumped from one or two a month to one or two a week, Eastwood said. The new prosecutor will handle all gun crimes without victims and be the assistant to gun crimes that have victims.

Eastwood said the position is funded with a $400,000 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant.

In addition to handling the prosecution for crimes committed with a gun, the new position will also prosecute applicants who lie on their license forms and the red flag laws which allow officers to temporarily remove weapons from dangerous or mentally-ill persons without a probable cause warrant. Eastwood said law enforcement has not been able to use the law because of staffing shortages.

Under Indiana's "Jake Laird" law, enacted in 2005 as a result of the death of an Indianapolis police officer, officers can remove weapons from the possession of dangerous or mentally ill persons without a probable cause warrant.

"Over the last four or five years, we've had more requests to temporarily seize guns from people who are suffering from a mental instability," Eastwood explained. "Once we seize them, we are required by law to appear in front of a court in a very short window ... where we show the person was a danger to themselves or others and that they're continuing to be dangerous to themselves or others."

Eastwood also announced that Rebecca Lesh will be hired to the newly-designated position. With the grant, the position is fully-funded for two years.

"Then over the next three years (the grant gets reduced) to where it's eventually zero," Eastwood said. "That's what this grant is intended to do. It's intended to identify where communities are lacking and they need more prosecutors to address certain needs."

Eastwood said case loads are returning to pre-pandemic levels.

"Our community is growing," he added. "Illegal gun possession is a huge issue."

Local police have dedicated gun evidence collectors who are specially-trained to handle a weapon found at a local crime scene.

"Those guns will be forensically analyzed for not only fingerprints, DNA ... shell casings," Eastwood said, "because we want to link those guns to other crimes."

This evidence can be used to show that the owner of the gun found at the scene may have been used to commit earlier crimes.

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