Shots fired – literally – over proposal to build datacenter in Indianapolis

Datacenter protests have taken an ugly turn in the US, with gunshots fired at the home of an Indianapolis councilor who recently lent his support to plans for a server farm in the area. Ron Gibson, a city-county representative for Indianapolis's 8th District, was woken in the early hours of Monday by gunfire. He found that 13 …

[Paul Herber]

Documents

There's always someone who wants to take document bullet-points literally. Indents should be in a paragraph, not in a door.

[Clausewitz4.1]

Re: Documents

I foresee the creation of this datacenter as a long shot

[Korev]

Re: Documents

You hit the target with that one

[Jellied Eel]

Pre-emptive self defence?

Perhaps the shooter mistook Gibson's home for that of Miles Dyson? But such drama!

In a statement posted on social media site X, Gibson said the bullets struck just steps away from where his eight-year-old son had been playing with Lego the previous day, and described the event as "deeply unsettling."

Having some nutjob shooting up your home is unsettling enough, but didn't really need to drag his kid into it. Unless his kid is in the habit of playing outside with his Lego in the early hours of the morning.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Pre-emptive self defence?

This is deeply un-American. The 8year old should have been playing outside with his own assault rifle, not some peaceful hippy foreign Lego

[Paul Herber]

Re: Pre-emptive self defence?

"with his own assault rifle"

with his own collection of loaded assault rifles

FTFY

[doublelayer]

Re: Pre-emptive self defence?

Bullets can go through doors and retain plenty of momentum. Your suggestion that the child would need to be outside for the comments to be correct is flawed. The early in the morning aspect reduces the risk somewhat, but by the time we're getting to that level, I think we both know we're not talking about useful differences. If a child as a potential victim makes this any worse, then regardless of the time of day, that is relevant.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Pre-emptive self defence?

Your suggestion that the child would need to be outside for the comments to be correct is flawed.

No, the councillor's statement is clearly flawed. If he'd said the bullets hit near where his child/him/his partner was sleeping, then the statement would have been more accurate, and no less shocking. Instead it's a statement that jumped out at me for being obviously irrelevant. It's one of those things that tends to trip BS meters, then people might start wondering what else the councillor might be exagerating. Like cost, job creation, economic impacts etc in considering and supporting the datacentre proposal. From a quick search, the datacentre proposal seems another speculative one though.

[doublelayer]

Re: Pre-emptive self defence?

"If he'd said the bullets hit near where his child/him/his partner was sleeping, then the statement would have been more accurate, and no less shocking."

Unless he and his partner and his child happened to be sleeping on the opposite side of the building, in which case it would be less accurate but a meaningless difference to the general danger of shots being fired at the house. The relevant part, that the bullets were going through a part of the house frequently in use, remains the same, even though the early morning meant the chance of that part being in use during the shooting was lower. Someone having an early appointment or difficulty sleeping could easily have changed the circumstances in a more tragic direction. I don't understand why you consider this difference to be as important as you do, but your minimization of it, suggesting that you would have to be outside to be at risk for instance, is tripping my own "why is that the point you're making" alarm.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Pre-emptive self defence?

"The relevant part, that the bullets were going through a part of the house frequently in use, remains the same"

I'm more with Jellied on this. It would be like a statement that something that happened in a park where "just the day before" they were enjoying a picnic. It doesn't diminish the severity and wrongfulness of the violence, but the narrative is combing too little hair over too big a bald patch.

[Anonymous Coward]

combing too little hair over too big a bald patch.

What has the mango moron and his hairspray carrier got to do with this?

[MonkeyJuice]

Re: Pre-emptive self defence?

I always found it unsettling when I lived in the US that not only can bullets go through doors, but indeed, all of the walls too. As a Brit, I'd not given brickwork much thought until the idea that some dunce messing about could accidentally discharge a rifle into the living room from a couple of doors down.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Pre-emptive self defence?

Might I draw our American cousins attention to the seminal work on home fortifications - 3 little pigs

[Dinanziame]

Data centers do employ some people locally, though it's usually in the hundreds rather than the thousands

[lglethal]

And in low paying positions, such as cleaners, security, and maintenance.

You do not gain masses of highly paid, high disposable income workers from a Datacentre.

I really cant understand how anyone would support one in their backyard. Well, not without resorting to the cynical view, that the love of brown paper envelopes is behind the councillour's support...

[Aladdin Sane]

It might no be stuffed envelopes, the councillor might just be thicker than a whale omelette.

[doublelayer]

That could be part of it and does seem to have happened at times, but there's also two more options, both much more sympathetic:

1. The politicians misunderstand this and think there are more jobs available. The companies wanting to build them are easily able to claim so, and politicians aren't experts on what a DC needs.

2. The politicians correctly understand this and think the jobs are worth the cost, possibly because they misunderstand the costs for even more sympathetic reasons. A couple hundred jobs is still worth something, and the DC providers are often good at pretending they'll cover all the costs of powering their new site. If they're covering the cost and the only downside for the residents is an ugly building, that is a much lower cost to pay. The fact that the promised payment is contingent on contracts between the DC and the local power provider which actually will pay for all the power costs assuming everything goes well and no plans change any time in the next ten years is more difficult to prove and may rely on information politicians don't have since they're negotiated between those two directly.

And for that matter, the citizens who oppose it generally don't have any more information about whether there will be problems from the proposal. They are likely using similarly limited information and coming to the opposite guess. It happens that, with modern GPU-heavy proposals and move-fast-hide-everything logistics, that guess is more often correct, but the same people object to lots of things that don't have negative effects on similarly knee-jerk reasoning.

[MachDiamond]

"1. The politicians misunderstand this and think there are more jobs available. The companies wanting to build them are easily able to claim so, and politicians aren't experts on what a DC needs."

Those politicians are paid to find these things out and often have staff that can dig out that information.

There's a balance between the number of jobs, what the compensation is for those jobs and the impact to the local area. This is why cities having zoning, so uses are compatible neighbors. The city is fine with me being a sole proprietor doing office work from my home. There wouldn't be approval if I were a car body shop with a dozen employees or a retail establishment.

An issue that can come up is land zoned for industrial uses can be more expensive. Land zoned for heavy industrial use that generates noise, smells, heat, traffic and other nuisances is far away from incompatible neighbors. A data center is more along the lines of heavy industry. Elon has rows of "temporary" gas turbine generators that aren't certified for permanent installation/use due to emissions and noise. There's provisions for those in emergency cases, but not continuously.

Resources also need to be managed. New pylons can be added to bring in more power, but water being drawn from a local aquifer can be depleted since there's no exact way to gauge how big the aquifer is and how quickly it's fed. No water would drive all other property values to close to zero while at the same time forcing people to have to move.

Any proofs would be on the DC operator to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the people in the area they want to build. Promises are useless. The "gigafactory" that Tesla took over in up-state New York promised to employ a certain number of people for the billion dollar gift from the tax payers of NY. Even though those employment promises were never reached, there haven't been any sanctions. Promise away if it's never going to come to anything if those promises aren't met. Where I live, the pot growers are required to mitigate odors. They don't and the city smells like somebody is roasting skunks on a pit over a fire fueled with damp cow pats. I expect that many other provisions are being violated as well with no fines. All of the tax money that was supposed to come from that hasn't appeared or, more likely, the city isn't managing the program properly. The fire department had to be turned over to the county to operate and it's obvious there aren't many police officers on duty at any given time.

[Dinanziame]

I really cant understand how anyone would support one in their backyard

I think the same of most industrial buildings, from warehouses to nuclear power plants, yet somehow they get built everywhere. Maybe towns will really accept anything to survive.

[IGotOut]

But warehouse and nuclear plants tend not to suck up the local water and electrical supplies to put entire neighborhoods at risk. Åh forgot, these are usually built near the less well off areas, sooooo.... Carry on?

[Stumpy]

Nuclear plants, in general, use a shitton of water. For cooling. That's why they tend to be built close to large bodies of water.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Yes but you can already scare people away from allowing nuclear powerstations by saying nuclear

The only way to scare people away from local data centers is by confusing them about internal water flow and water usage

[MachDiamond]

A distribution warehouse can be an issue as they mean lots of heavy traffic at all hours. Those are loads of low pay jobs as well. Nuclear power plants don't get sited in the middle of a town and they aren't being built everywhere or much of anywhere at all.

[Dan 55]

"Shots fired"

Seems to be the American solution to everything.

E.g. Grandad woke up this morning caked in his own shit, so he got angry and threatened to exterminate the whole of Iran.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "Shots fired"

One bullet - one vote

Since the Supreme Court ruled that guns were people, automatic weapons do enjoy an electoral advantage

[Bebu sa Ware]

Shots fired … into the front door of a councilor

The Indianpolis in the US ? Incredible !

The average American gun crazy (pardon the tautology) normally leaves innocent doors and similar inamimate objects unmolested while cutting to the chase and striving to rapidly "de·animating" as many fellow American as possible. (God given second amendment right you know.)

"I understand that public service can bring strong opinions and disagreement, but violence is never the answer, "

Which nation does he think he actually lives in ? Certainly can't be the US if you take this statement at face value unless he meant that violence is never the answer unless he and his were inflicting the violence.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Shots fired … into the front door of a councilor

In the USA shooting is protected free speech, it's just their way of communicating.

Rather like my dog barking excitedly at every leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Shots fired … into the front door of a councilor

Ah! Reminds me a bit of Don Davis of Indianapolis' Don's Guns and Galleries whose slogan was "I don't want to make any money. I just love to sell guns, heh-heh-heh.". He passed away in February 10 years ago. And Indy also had the "deadliest mass shooting in the history of Indiana" at one of its FedEx Ground facilities, 5 years ago this April. This all was (obviously) decades after the 1930 Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith 85 miles away in Marion, IN, as presented in the song Hazy Shade Of Criminal (for example).

In this here (so-called) datacenter-opposition-oriented shooting, it's worthwhile to observe that Rep. Ron Gibson is a Democrat, African-American, the proposed datacenter is 75 MW which is 1/26ᵗʰ of Musk's Tennesse Colossus (2 GW) or 1/93ᵗʰ of whonot's Stargate (7 GW), the land is a "long-abandoned drive-in theater" ('local media' link in TFA) near KDC Truck and Trailer repair (industrial area), and so forth ... imho.

With this background info, I'd say what happened here is bog standard white-supremacist MAGA nut domestic terrorism, not popular protest against the building of yet another AI (so-called) datacenter that turned into a shooting affair. It's nothing but bog standard violent and cowardly racism (again) disguised as oppositon to the building of a 'small' datacenter, imho. ;(

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Shots fired … into the front door of a councilor

With this background info, I'd say what happened here is bog standard white-supremacist MAGA nut domestic terrorism, not popular protest against the building of yet another AI (so-called) datacenter that turned into a shooting affair.

I'd say that was just your TDS talking. Gibson's district is mostly black, described as historic and residential. You found the local news article, but I guess you didn't see the ethnicitty of the people protesting the decision, or what they said were their objections. You also noticed the proposed size of the datacentre, yet perhaps didn't wonder how such a small DC can cost a claimed '$500m'. Or then In addition, the site could generate property taxes of about $11 million a year before any tax abatements

But then tax abatements and assorted bungs might be why it's being built where it is. I also liked this claim-

Located less than 4.7 miles from FD-IX, for ultra-low latency of just 0.21 milliseconds.

Woo and yey. But-

https://www.peeringdb.com/ix/986

I guess it has Akami & Cloudflare, but also Beck's Superior Hybrids, Inc. who advertise only 2x IPv4 prefixes. Becks knows about roots though.

[James 51]

Re: Shots fired … into the front door of a councilor

What does The Daily Show have to do with any of this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Shots fired … into the front door of a councilor

"the site could generate property taxes of about $11 million a year"

Just like I could shag Elvis all the way to Jupiter and back on Beardie's upcoming space flight.

[JohnSheeran]

All the jokes that those of you across the pond like to make about our guns/politics/culture/everything, these situations are going to get worse. Our politicians are corrupt at all levels. It doesn't matter who you look at or what level of service they hold. They are all bought and sold by corporations. When people run out of options to have an effect on the things that impact their lives, they are going to resort to violence. It doesn't make it right but it doesn't mean that we can joke our way out of it.

AI investment and job loss will make this get worse.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

But looking on the bright side, a few guillotinings, a brief experiment with democracy, a reign of terror, a futile land war in Asia and in a 100 years you achieve the croissant

[Aitor 1]

Croissants

Can I have croissants without the nasty parts of your list? I like croissants.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Croissants

Non ! No revolution, No croissants!

[The Oncoming Scorn]

"Our politicians are corrupt at all levels."

You vote them in.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

But if you don't vote for the criminal the wrong criminal will get in

[JohnSheeran]

You should probably capitalize "YOU" just so your snark will hit home.

We have no choices. ALL of them are corrupt. It doesn't matter what party you pick. The money is all the same denomination and it doesn't care who they are.

[Dan 55]

You only have two parties, the party which doesn't change anything for four years and the party which makes things worse over four years. There's also Bernie Sanders but he's not a party. You decided to vote for the party which makes things worse over four years because you couldn't vote for the black lady.

No they're not all the same. You chose the worst party and unfortunately its president makes things worse for the rest of the world too.

[JohnSheeran]

That's just your partisan opinion. They all make things worse in their own way. At the local level, they may not even be in a party. It doesn't change the problem.

You're also very naive if you think "either party" are without corruption.

[Dan 55]

The way to fix it is to set up a grassroots movement in every state to follow Montana's method of neutering Citizens United, getting Democrats on board in that state if possible and doing it without them if not.

The way not to fix it is to bleat on about how they're all corrupt, there are no more options left, and guns are the only way that remains. They're obviously not all as corrupt as each other and claiming guns are the only response that remains is a complete failure of imagination.

[Bill Gray]

> You're also very naïve if you think "either party" are without corruption.

(Sigh) Look, I realize we're deluged with the idea that they're all corrupt. Much of that comes from politicians who are, themselves, corrupt, and figure their best bet is to say "everybody does it; just give up and let me get elected".

It's been quite effective, unfortunately, and has ensured a self-perpetuating cycle : you get some corrupt pols, they smear others whether they're actually corrupt or not. That makes politics a less appealing pursuit for any honest citizen, bringing in more corruption, which...

At this point, your average USAian (other countries as well) has a higher opinion of telemarketers and used car salesmen than they do of politicians.

But it would be naïve to simply accept uncritically the corrupt politician's argument that "they're all corrupt". Yes, a hell of a lot of them are. Many are not corrupt, but are highly ideologically motivated to the point where it interferes with their ability to reason. (Increasingly a problem in a country where most of its citizens are highly polarized. If Congress didn't contain a bunch of loons, it wouldn't be a representative body.)

[rg287]

You're also very naive if you think "either party" are without corruption.

This children, is what's known as false equivalence.

The Democrats and Republicans both have corruption. No doubt about that. And every politician is looking at their exit, and buttering up some consultancy position for their post-political career, which usually involves doing dishonest things in office.

But it's only under Donald Trump's Republican administration where:

* The POTUS refuses to put their assets in a blind trust, unlike every other POTUS in history.

* POTUS is using his position to promote meme coins like $TRUMP, from which he personally profits.

* Suspicious stock market activity relating to major policy announcements on tariffs, war and foreign policy.

* One Polymarket user made more than $400,000 in profits betting on Maduro’s capture on an investment made within 24 hours of the military action

* Press Secretaries are abruptly walking out of press conferences seconds before betting thresholds.

This administration is the most corrupt in US history. All presidents had conflicts of interest. Name me another who became $3Bn richer during the first two years of their presidency.

This isn't the polite under-the-table corruption of our grandfathers with "there's a board seat waiting for you"-type deals. It's flagrant cashing in at the US taxpayer's expense, with his cohort of bottom-feeding scumsuckers picking up the crumbs by trading their insider knowledge on Polymarket.

This is without precedent outside of tin pot dictatorships and countries that are trying too hard with the "Democratic Republic of..." monikers.

[Jellied Eel]

You decided to vote for the party which makes things worse over four years because you couldn't vote for the black lady.

What is it about Democrats and their racism? Is it a hold-over from their support for slavery that lead to those Southern Democrats being on the wrong side of history during America's Civil War? A lot of black people voted for Trump, possibly because they realised that Harris was an idiot and unelectable.

[Pussifer]

... and Trump isn't an idiot? A dangerous idiot at that. All he has is money and bullshit, there's no substance to him at all. Only in America :-)

[MonkeyJuice]

Come on Jelly, you aren't so silly as to forget that The Republicans and Democrats switched sides after the civil rights movement can you? The Democrats of the civil war became the Republicans of today.

This is a low-effort troll, even for you. I expect better even from Musketeers.

[lglethal]

Perhaps I'm too optimistic...

You do realise that there are thrid parties, and independents that can be voted for, right?

At least for Congress and the Senate.

Vote for ANYONE else, and encourage others to do the same, and you might just get the changes you want. 40% of voting age Americans did not vote in the last election. 40%! That's more than either party received in the presidential vote (31-29% if i remeber correctly). Get those people voting for local parties, or independents, and you would see the back end of both the Democrats and the Republicans.

You have been convinced that there are only 2 parties and voting for a third party is wasting your vote. But every vote counts, and if you use it properly, you can make a difference.

[Tron]

He was probably radicalised online.

One of those websites filled with comments by people who hate datasheds and AI. Shocking stuff.

[Paul Herber]

Re: He was probably radicalised online.

What about that Mr Jackson with his two datasheds?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: He was probably radicalised online.

Mr Jackson, Did you write this comment in the shed?

[Ken Shabby]

Re: He was probably radicalised online.

Have you written any of your recent comments in this shed?

[DS999]

You laugh

But I wonder if all the money and political power behind datacenters will push the narrative that those against them are anti-capitalist / pro-communist, traitors who want to see China dominate America, and so forth and try to silence them.

[gosand]

I looked up this area on Wikipedia: "Several public and private facilities can be found within Martindale-Brightwood. These include: the Brightwood Community Center, Martin University, the Juvenile Detention Center, the Edna Martin Christian Center, three public elementary schools, one fire station, five public parks, Genesis Plaza, and close to 100 churches."

To me that's a lot of churches for less than 13,000 people, but I wonder why they would be targeting this area for a datacenter....

"The residents are predominantly African American..."

There you have it, that's the Indiana I know.

[Anonymous Coward]

In America, churches are profit centres.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Even prophets have to make a profit somehow

[Paul Herber]

I hope the churches aren't diverting profits away from the prisons!

[MachDiamond]

My questions

Was this politician acting upon the wishes of the local population that elected him, or was sentiment in complete opposition to his position?

Yeah, shooting is too extreme, but I'd see somebody being pushed over the edge if they believed they were being sold, again, to enrich a politician in some way. It's disturbing how senior elected politicians can turn a $175,000 annual salary into several millions in wealth over the course of 4-6 years. How can a winery without a liquor license be making $10mn?

The news started showing how a population in Minnesota was seriously defrauding government programs and recently, it's come to light that the problem is much worse in California. These sorts of things keep piling up and taxes keep going up (or become a bigger percentage of a shrinking income). The water will dribble over the dam at first and if something isn't done, it might come to pass that much more starts pouring over until the dam breaks catastrophically. I hope this isn't the first little bit of dribbling

[retiredFool]

Re: My questions

I am a bit suspicious of the trump admin claiming fraud in two pretty blue states. Florida in particular has been known for medicare fraud for decades, and yet crickets. As I see it trump et al have weaponized every single federal administration to do his bidding. So pardon me if I find the Cal/MInn "investigations" suspect. And the R's in congress are such pussies they do nothing even when he threatens to commit a genocide which is a war crime by any standard. And yet he still sits on the golden throne.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: My questions

I am a bit suspicious of the trump admin claiming fraud in two pretty blue states. Florida in particular has been known for medicare fraud for decades, and yet crickets.

Here's a thing-

https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/8-arrested-health-care-fraud-takedown-including-owners-hospices-billed-taxpayers

LOS ANGELES – In coordination with the Vice President’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, eight defendants, including three nurses, a chiropractor, and a purported psychologist, have been arrested on federal charges that they schemed to defraud the nation’s health care system out of more than $50 million – including by running sham hospice care facilities that bilked Medicare by using people without terminal illnesses as beneficiaries, the Justice Department announced today.

One of the curious things is that despite Florida being popular with snowbirds, it apparently has far fewer hospices per capita than LA. Along with people having their Medicare bills queried because unbeknownst to them, they were apparently in a hospice. Apparently people were just having their Medicare details stolen, then enrolled in these frauds. And much as with Minnesota's daycare centres, no actuall hospices. Which is a bit curious given hospices are supposedly licensed and inspected.

But such is politics. Or local government, which is back to this story and the way Gibson and the council decided to rezone land in the district they're supposed to represent, against the wishes of at least some of their electorate and against the previous development plan. Not suggesting back-handers were involved, but that does happen in local government and with planning decisions.

[MachDiamond]

Re: My questions

"Here's a thing-"

There's been a bunch of reporting on it in the MSM as well. It's not just the president banging on about Blue states. I don't pay much attention to him, but I don't think I've heard him comment on California's issues.

Somewhere I have a book from somebody that was tasked with working with a helicopter money program to minimize fraud, but the gov started issuing checks like mad immediately and his group was trying to get suitable offices allocated and furniture brought in and hitting red tape. By the time that group was able to see what was going one, massive amounts of fraud was being committed and the funds for the checks rapidly depleting. Fast forward a decade or two and the same thing is still the norm.

I've also seen programs get so mired that allocated funds sit for long periods of time without a procedure worked out for them to be dispersed. I'm a fanatic for templates and outlines. I don't see why there can't be fill-in-the-blanks frameworks that can be pulled off the shelf whenever these programs get passed that will stop all but the most sophisticated frauds. When death row inmates are sent income support checks having been approved with no vetting, there's a problem. I would also expect there to be citizenship requirements and checks in place. If I'm visiting Scotland, as a US citizen is would be bizarre that I could go stand in a queue, fill out a couple of forms and be handed a pre-loaded debit card from the government. I'm not saying that it happens, but I would not expect that to be possible. Maybe IQ points where lost on each day of ocean voyage to the new world way back when and its never recovered. Of course, the more rational explanation is somebody somewhere is making a mint from these programs and more importantly, getting lots of votes for approving the spending.

[rg287]

Whilst I do not condone political violence (or violence of any kind really), this very much falls into the "Surprised it's taken this long" category, amid the sombre risk assessment that as long as politicians continue to represent vested business interests over and above the interests of their constituents, this is unfortunately likely to become more common.

I'm also kind of surprised that noone tried dropping a couple of incendiary mortar shells into the "Colossus" xAI datacentres that have been illegally running "backup" natural gas turbines 24/7.

A mortar is not hard to make - metal tube, a bit of propellant. A very simple rig could start quite the conflagration in amongst the turbines and gas storage. Heck, in a country with more guns than people, a few well placed shots with a .308 into the grid transformers or gas-handling pipework would bring the whole thing to a screeching halt with an earth-shattering kaboom.

The Colossus site in Memphis may now be a fait accompli given they've completed construction of a new substation, and some portion of the turbines are reportedly being removed. But as awareness of the issues grow, future abusive developments could well see rather more stubborn resistance if they're polluting the air or dumping brine from the cooling systems.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

A mortar is not hard to make - metal tube, a bit of propellant

The IRA made them for years. Mind you, their mortar shells were often the real thing as supplied by their US facilitators..

(The US started early in their support for terrorists)