INDIANAPOLIS – Deeon Flowers, 29, of Indianapolis, was sentenced to fifty-seven months in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
According to court documents and evidence presented at sentencing, on October 17, 2020, officers with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) were dispatched to a gas station around 38th and Keystone Avenue in Indianapolis. When officers arrived, they were told that Flowers had taken his girlfriend’s 11-year-old child without the mother’s permission. Officers located Flowers in the driver’s seat of a vehicle stopped at the gas station. The child was in the front passenger seat. Officers observed a handgun magazine protruding from Flowers’ waistband and could also see marijuana in plain view in the center console area.
Police obtained a search warrant for the vehicle and recovered a loaded 9mm Taurus G2C, underneath the driver’s seat, as well as another loaded magazine from inside a lunchbox on the front passenger floorboard. Flowers is a convicted felon and is prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition. The firearm was swabbed for DNA, which was later determined to match Flowers’ DNA. At the time of the offense, Flowers was on pretrial supervision after being charged with felony intimidation and misdemeanor domestic battery in Marion County, Indiana, in November of 2019.
Zachary A. Myers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana; Chief Randal Taylor, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department; and Daryl S. McCormick, Special Agent in Charge of ATF’s Columbus Field Division made the announcement.
IMPD and the ATF investigated the case. U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon imposed the sentence following Flowers’ guilty plea. As part of the sentence, Judge Hanlon ordered that Flowers be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for three years following his release from prison.
U.S. Attorney Myers thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelsey Massa who prosecuted this case.
This case was brought as part of the Indiana Crime Guns Task Force (ICGTF). ICGTF is a partnership of law enforcement officers and analysts from several central Indiana law enforcement agencies in Boone, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Marion, Morgan, Johnson, and Shelby counties. In cooperation with state, local, and federal partners, ICGTF collaborates to address violent crime through a comprehensive strategy including innovative approaches to locating suspects and evidence related to violent crimes and illegal possession of firearms.
This case was also brought as part of the LEATH Initiative (Law Enforcement Action to Halt Domestic Violence), named in honor of Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) Officer Breann Leath, who was killed in the line of duty while responding to a domestic disturbance call. A partnership among the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the IMPD, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana, the LEATH Initiative focuses federal, state, and local law enforcement resources on domestic violence offenders who illegally possess firearms.
Additionally, this case is also part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. The Department of Justice reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement, and the local community to develop effective, locally based strategies to reduce violent crime.