Shots hit Indianapolis councilman home, note says No Data Centers after rezoning fight, local permitting disputes turn into personal risk

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bnonews.com

Thirteen shots were fired into the front door of an Indianapolis city councilman’s home early Monday, and a note left at the scene read “No Data Centers,” according to BNO News and local reporting it cited. Councilman Ron Gibson said he and his eight-year-old son were inside the house and were not injured.

The gunfire occurred shortly before 1am, Gibson said, but police were not called until around 9am. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said officers found evidence of gunfire and described the incident as targeted and isolated. The FBI is assisting, and no suspect had been identified as of Monday.

The note points to a specific local fight that has been building around data-centre expansion. BNO News reported that Gibson had attended a Metropolitan Development Commission meeting days earlier to support rezoning at 2505 North Sherman Drive, where Metrobloks LLC plans a data centre and office development. When Gibson spoke at the meeting, he was met with boos, according to the CBS affiliate cited by BNO.

That sequence—public hearing, visible vote, then private retaliation—shows how infrastructure politics now travels. Data centres are sold as clean, quiet jobs and tax base; neighbours often experience them as large, power-hungry boxes that bring construction disruption, heavy grid upgrades, and little local employment once built. Permitting decisions are made at city commissions and council meetings, but the costs—noise, land use, electricity demand, and water for cooling in some designs—are borne by the surrounding area.

For elected officials, the asymmetry is sharper. Rezoning fights concentrate anger on a small number of people whose names and home addresses are often easy to find, while the beneficiaries are diffuse: developers, landlords, and cloud customers far from the neighbourhood. When threats become physical, the practical effect is to raise the personal price of casting a vote, especially for local politicians without security details.

Gibson said bullets struck near where his child had been playing the previous day. Police said the investigation is ongoing.

The note left behind contained three words: “No Data Centers.”