Warrant Accountability Event Brings in Roughly 150 Participants

The Warrant Accountability Event was deemed a success by the Vanderburgh County

Prosecutor’s Office after about 150 people showed up today. A line of participants started to form outside of Courtroom 110 before the two-hour event even started.

“We knew it would draw in a lot of people who missed previous court dates because we had multiple phone calls about it all week,” said Whitney Riggs, spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office. “Everything went smoothly though and about 150 people have a new start to their cases.”

The goal of the event was to have those people who have missed court dates for whatever reason to get back in the system. Currently, there are more than 12,000 warrants out in Vanderburgh County. Superior Court Judge Les Shively, who volunteered to preside, welcomed Level 5, Level 6 and misdemeanor cases.

“No charges were dropped for these people, but hopefully some of them can keep moving forward with their cases now without worrying about a warrant hanging over their head or potentially getting arrested,” Riggs said.

Shively and his staff stayed an extra hour until 1 p.m. to make sure all the attendees received new court dates. There were also five staff members from the prosecutor’s office who volunteered.

“We want to thank Judge Shively and his staff for taking the time to help us make the event possible,” Riggs said. “We will look into holding something similar again in the future.”