Sign the petition: Justice for Adam Sykes!
On February 25, police responded to a 911 call reporting an injured woman at a Speedway gas station on the near east side. Police say that woman told them she was assaulted and that she asked for medics, who later arrived and took her to the hospital.
Minutes after arriving on that call, IMPD officer Grant Snyder shot and killed Adam Sykes, a man completely unconnected to the reported assault. Last Friday, after 4:00 pm, the IMPD released a significantly edited video to portray Sykes as a wanted villain and Snyder as a hero. The decision to release the video at the end of the work week, day, and news cycle was more than convenient; it was undoubtedly calculated to prevent any counter-narrative or physical opposition from emerging.
Even their carefully-curated presentation of Sykes’ murder, however, not only leaves several perplexing questions but also demonstrates the police involved violated their own General Orders.
Snyder and other cops ignored IMPD regulations
The IMPD’s standard operating procedures are laid out in what they call “General Orders,” which are rules and regulations that all officers are supposed to follow at all times.
General Order 4.33, “Foot Pursuits,” says that officers may only start to chase someone on foot if that person has just committed a crime, is having a mental health crisis, or is a danger to the public. Sykes fit none of those criteria, and in fact was heard on the released footage saying that he didn’t want to talk to the police.
General Order 1.32, “Less Lethal Devices,” says that “The act of fleeing, without other factors involved, does not justify the use of a taser.” Sykes was trying to leave; no other factors, like the gun, were known to the cops until after they tased and shot him.
General Order 1.30, “Use of Force Principles,” says that officers must de-escalate, be slow and deliberate, and never use threatening or verbally abusive language. Within five seconds of giving their first audible command to Sykes, cops had shouted at him to “get on the fucking ground” and “you’re gonna get tased!”
Even if we were to accept the ludicrous claim that officers recognized Adam and believed he had an outstanding warrant, none of their actions followed department policy. Moreover, as we discuss below, given that the warrant was for a petty “crime,” why would the majority of the officers called to the scene abandon it to pursue and, ultimately kill, Sykes?
IMPD paints Sykes as a villain, contrary to those who knew him
The police’s misrepresentation relies on a cop justifying the pursuit of Sykes because he recognized and believed he had an active arrest warrant. They want people to believe this justifies lynching Sykes in the street in the middle of the night. Thus far, no major media have sought out or highlighted who Sykes was as a person.
Yet the first thing that exoneree Leon Benson, who spent time with Sykes at Pendleton Correctional Facility in 2017, told the Indianapolis Liberator in an exclusive interview was that Sykes would regularly “grab books from me and we’d talk about life.” He spoke of someone who wanted to be a part of something larger than himself. “And he had a phenomenal love for his daughter,” he said.
“That was really something that was stressing him out at the time. He really loved his family. He was always eager to help. He just wanted to be a person, to be a part of something good. I really have love for him.”
That aligns with what those in the neighborhood said happened that night. The only reason Sykes was in the area was to help a woman who was being attacked.
Corporations the “victims” of Sykes’s “crimes”
What was this loving father, brother, and community member accused of doing that resulted in his active arrest warrant? Theft from Family Dollar, a felony charge because of a previous conviction of theft at Meijer.
The IMPD wants the public to believe that Adam Sykes was a vicious criminal who deserved to be executed in the street in front of people’s homes. But the real criminals are the bosses of Family Dollar, who steal millions of dollars from their workers’ paychecks. No police officer, whose job it is to protect businesses’ property, would ever think of gunning down a CEO on the street over something like wage theft.
Only when the political and legal system is controlled by corporations and are shaped by their interests is such a disparity in police response possible. But it doesn’t have to be this way: working and oppressed people can take power away from the bosses and build a society that takes care of everyone’s basic needs.
With a guaranteed job, home, healthcare, and education, the societal pressures that drive exploited people to survive by any means necessary would disappear, and, with it, a vast majority of the “crimes” used by the capitalist state to disappear oppressed workers into jails and prisons, as well as by the gun, would evaporate.
Justice for Adam Sykes!
- Release the unedited body camera footage of what happened that night.
- Fire Grant Snyder.
- Charge Snyder with Sykes’ murder!