Indianapolis Ranks Among Top 40 Safest Cities in the U.S.

That was the headline on a news release sent out by Mayor Greg Ballard’s folks at City Hall this week.

In the news release, Ballard trumpeted the outcome of a Forbes.com study that was the basis for all this pride.

“We as a city remain committed to making public safety job one,” Ballard wrote. “This ranking certainly reflects these efforts.”

The mayor also tweeted the good news.

Problem is, it doesn’t appear anyone at City Hall read beyond the somewhat misleading headline on the study — America’s Safest Cities — and actually studied the study. At least carefully.

What Forbes.com did was rank the safety of the 40 largest metropolitan areas. And Indianapolis — technically the Indianapolis-Carmel area, which includes all the suburbs — ranked, gulp, 36th.

So, put another way . . .

Indianapolis Ranks as 5th Most Dangerous Large City in the U.S.

Not exactly fodder for the next Chamber of Commerce brochures.

Robert Vane, Ballard’s press secretary, said the staff just misinterpreted what Forbes put out.

“The statistics back us up,” Vane said. “We have a very positive legacy on crime that has nothing to do with the Forbes survey.”

Which is probably just as well, because Forbes’ ranking wasn’t especially kind to Indy when it comes specifically to violent crime: It ranked Indianapolis No. 30 — worse than Chicago (26) and Philadelphia (28).

Forbes actually factored in four categories to achieve its “safest city” rankings: violent crime, workplace fatality rates, traffic deaths and natural disaster risks.

Indianapolis scored dead last — No. 40 — in workplace fatality rates and No. 26 in traffic deaths. Its best ranking was in the area the city is least able to control: the wrath of Mother Nature. It ranked No. 19 in natural disaster risk.

So, you could say . . .

Indianapolis Ranked Large City Where You Most Likely Will Be Killed on the Job

Indiana Department of Labor officials looked at the survey and said its conclusions appeared speculative, said spokesman Sean Keefer. At best, they said, a poll that combined four factors should be viewed as subjective.

Jack Dvorak, a professor of journalism at Indiana University, said these types of polls may provide more entertaining reading than sophisticated analysis.

“A lot of those polls you have to take with a grain of salt. They look at only certain categories. Also, you wonder how scientifically accurate they are.”

Dvorak had not seen the Forbes report and could not comment on how solid he thinks it is.

“Perhaps they had some good, hard data they looked at,” Dvorak said.

Messages left with Forbes were not returned.

Vane, the mayor’s spokesman, stresses that, media perception and surveys aside, crime in Indianapolis actually has fallen 6 percent since his boss took office.

Still, he might be having an easier time with all this if he were, say, a spokesman for the mayor of Minneapolis. Forbes ranked it the safest city, followed by Milwaukee; Portland, Ore.; Boston; and Seattle.

On the other end, Miami — the hurricanes and homicides don’t help — ranked No. 40, just below Nashville, Tenn.; Houston; and Jacksonville, Fla.

But, then again, this is . . .

Another One of Those Lists You Might Want to Take with a Grain of Salt