Violence, Oppression, and Politics
Friends and Constituents,
I hope you are all well.
I am not well. Not even close.
What happened Monday night at the Council meeting was a new low for our city and its people. If you haven’t seen the local reporting, let me recap.
First, I want to share some context.
From the beginning, President Vop Osili has resisted every attempt to hold Mayor Hogsett accountable for the culture of rampant harassment and abuse in his administration.
On July 19, 2024, the Indy Star broke the story that Mayor Joe Hogsett’s top aide, Thomas Cook, had been preying on subordinates for years.
When the August 7th Mirror Indy follow-up story about Joe Hogsett’s refusal to hold Cook accountable broke, I asked the Democratic caucus to call for Mayor Joe Hogsett’s resignation. After several conversations with individual councilors, it was clear that all of us were deeply concerned, but the Caucus was not ready to take a united stand, and so I issued my own statement.
While the Democratic caucus struggled to find its position, the Republican Caucus submitted their proposal to form an investigative committee. On August 12, we entered our caucus discussion without having taken any steps to hold Mayor Hogsett accountable.
Just an hour prior to the August 12 Council meeting where the Republican proposal would be introduced, Democrats began to discuss, for the first time, what actions we could unite behind. Over President Osili’s objections, the vast majority of us in the room supported creating a strong and independent investigative committee with subpoena power, the usage of a law firm with no Indiana political ties or ties to the Hogsett administration, and the authority to pursue the investigation wherever it led - explicitly NOT stopping with Thomas Cook and his behavior. We made it quite clear how disappointed and frustrated we were to be rapidly approaching the start time of a public meeting, without having a plan and without having anything down on paper about our next steps.
As the Caucus meeting concluded, mere moments before the Council meeting was due to start, President Osili left and worked with a few other Councilors to draft the resolution we had all collectively described.
President Osili came downstairs - quite late - with a proposal that did not in any way meet the standards that we had discussed as a caucus.
Without any explanation to the rest of the Caucus, President Osili pushed to amend the agenda from the floor to include this new, toothless Proposal 287, which stopped short of calling for an investigation and focused solely on future-facing HR updates.
While Mayor Hogsett gave his budget introduction speech, we Democrats were texting among ourselves with great concern about the draft resolution that had been dropped on our desks.
Seven different Democratic Councilors agreed with me that the proposal was strangely watered down, didn’t call for an investigative committee, and was not what we had discussed as a group.
Our caucus had agreed that it would be important for us to take a few moments to explain to the public the walk-on agenda item and the reason for our votes - but President Osili, the chair of the meeting, did not grant Councilors the opportunity to do any of that. Instead, he allowed Republicans to verbalize their resolution and the reasons behind it, without describing or explaining the Democratic proposal.
Democrats were so shocked and concerned by this attempt to stifle an investigation, that we voted in favor of the Republican-led Proposal 288 - since at least it called for the creation of a committee.
The next day, worried colleagues of mine heard that President Osili was planning on ignoring the resolution that we had voted in favor of (which called for committee members of the Investigative Committee to be assigned by August 19th) and instead sending the proposal to the Rules Committee, which he chairs, in late September as a way of once again stalling for time and avoiding the start of an investigation.
The Democratic Caucus resisted this and scheduled an earlier committee meeting to create the Investigative Committee.
That same day, I sent two emails to the full Council - neither of which received any response whatsoever.
Meanwhile, President Osili was once again working behind the scenes to control any potential investigation. Without informing the caucus, he sought out a local law firm with strong ties to the local Democratic Party - the opposite of an unbiased and uninterested investigator. Once again, the Caucus was disturbed by this and was able to push to end this attempt.
The Caucus banded together after all of this frustration and rallied to salvage the embarrassing situation that President Osili brought us to. Thanks to immense efforts over the next week by many members of the caucus, especially Councilor Andy Nielsen, we ended up with an amendment that created a strong proposal that clearly called out the needs we had identified:
President Osili repeatedly made public statements emphasizing that women must lead.
However, he was not interested in giving women true leadership - he was setting them up to be left holding the bag while he kept his hands clean.
To that end, President Osili did not attend a single hearing of the Investigative Committee, despite using his role as Council President to lean on Chairwoman Crista Carlino and directing Council staff to subtly influence the scope of work that Fisher Phillips engaged in.
Contrary to what virtually the entire Democratic Caucus and Republican Caucuses agreed at the outset of the committee, Fisher Phillips chose not to use the subpoena authority we worked intentionally to include, and chose to share the full names of most of the witnesses they interviewed.
Both of the survivors named as Complainants 1 and 2 in the full report expressed deep frustration with the way their complaints were handled by the investigative committee. Lauren Roberts attempted to remotely speak at the final committee meeting, but was given no opportunity to do so.
Lauren then crowdfunded to help her fly into Indianapolis to directly speak with Councilors about her experience and her needs at the most appropriate time: a Council meeting where public comment was mandatory under state law, and where the funding for the investigative committee was up for a vote.
President Vop Osili abuses his role as President, using violence to silence sexual assault survivors.
At the Council meeting on Monday, the Council heard public comment on Proposal 164, which would appropriate $300,000 to pay for the Fisher Phillips-authored investigative report. This report centered on the complaints of Lauren Roberts and fellow survivor Caroline Ellert.
Within seconds of Lauren stepping up to the podium to speak, President Osili interrupted her, questioning her on the relevance of her testimony.
Adding insult to injury, Osili called Lauren “Ms. Boebert” twice, before Lauren finally corrected him. As Lauren calmly proceeded, Osili continued to interrupt and argue with her, instead of simply allowing her to speak. In the end, Lauren was only able to deliver a few seconds of her comments before Osili gestured to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office reserve deputies to remove her by force, which they did.
After being forced out of the meeting by sheriff’s deputies, Lauren was able to deliver her comments to the media outside of the council building. Please, stop what you’re doing and listen to the full recorded audio from Lauren’s phone. The whole thing is less than 18 minutes long - including Lauren’s attempted speech before the council, her being violently ejected from the building, and reading her statement to the media outside.
After the meeting, I couldn't sleep, haunted by the screams and cries of “shame” that rang out through the Public Assembly Room earlier that evening. I received dozens of comments from constituents asking how in the hell this kind of behavior could be tolerated. Several other constituents reported crying, losing sleep, and feeling traumatized and shamed that they allowed this travesty to continue. At least one Black man in the audience who was prepared to testify about how he had been harassed and abused while working for the City, retreated in fear after observing the violent reaction to Lauren’s comments.
This is President Osili’s M.O.: using police to bully, intimidate, and silence the people who most need to be heard. Some of my peers appear to have woken up to President Osili's disgusting suppression of and disregard for constituents’ speech. Councilors Evans, Barth, and Mascari all spoke out against how Lauren was treated. Although I wish that this realization had come earlier, such as when Lauren attempted to speak before the investigative committee, or when Osili ejected Jewish peace activists for speaking out about Gaza, or when Vop threw out animal welfare advocates asking for animal welfare reform - I am glad they are censuring the behavior now.
President Osili initially defended his actions. Yesterday, still standing up for harasser-in-chief Mayor Hogsett, President Osili finally issued a statement where he admits that he “failed,” but stops short of saying “I am sorry.” He did not reach out to Lauren, or any of the other survivors present. He shows no remorse and no accountability, despite public relations-oriented attempts to imply otherwise.
Month after month, President Osili’s hamfisted and confusing leadership of Council meetings and brutal suppression of public comment embarrass and shame the Council. Over and over again, he has defended Joe Hogsett’s unpopular nominees - even when his own caucus disagrees with him.
President Osili attempted first to kill any investigation. Then, he exercised his influence to control it, using his influence as Council President to redirect it towards Party loyalists to limit its scope. When it was clear that the truth would still come out, he resorted to police violence in a last-ditch effort to silence survivors.
Now that his tactics are exposed to the public, the cat is out of the bag.
The people of Indianapolis demand an end to the culture of secrecy, intimidation, and violence.
If we are to overcome the shameful legacy of abuse in the Hogsett administration, we must also reject so-called President Vop Osili.
In love and solidarity,
Jesse