Richmond Hills residents to media: Give us space

The Indianapolis Fire Department tonight passed along a message from residents of Richmond Hills affected by the explosion for the media to give them space.  Here's the message:

Please Stop all unauthorized attempts to contact us via our phones and email. Please Stop approaching our contractors and insurance agents asking them to contact you so you can do an interview or enter our homes.

Please stop contacting our family members and friends for access to us. We are asking that you please stop approaching us every time we leave a meeting or try and enter our neighborhood. We collectively and as a majority do not want you in our neighborhood at this time.

This week we suffered a catastrophic tragedy that has impacted us deeply. We are trying to heal and find some space and we feel that you are disrespecting our privacy. We need time to process and begin to re-build our lives. In time we may be prepared to tell our story but for now, we are hurting are feeling harassed.

If we have not contacted you for an interview, Please do NOT attempt to contact us at this time. We do appreciate the effort on your behalf to tell the story of our tragic event, but we feel the boundary lines have been crossed on a personal level and we are asking you to cease and desist. Thank you for respecting our boundaries, and our right to tell you no.

Sincerely, the affected residents of Richmond Hills