In the wake of the shooting that killed 11-year-old Dominic Davis in the West End, Cincinnati Police say the city is seeing a record number of juvenile gun violence victims.
The tragic surge comes even as overall violent crime — including gun crime — is down in the city.
An unknown shooter in a dark sedan fired into a crowd at City West housing development in the West End the evening of Nov. 3. Davis was hit in the head and killed. Five other people — including four other minors — were injured. Police are still looking for the shooter.
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In a presentation before City Council's Public Safety and Governance Committee Tuesday, Police Chief Teresa Theetge and Senior Crime Analyst Jillian Desmond said the shooting is part of a disturbing pattern.
Shootings overall are down about 7% from this time last year, and violent crime as a whole is down about 14%. But there have been 58 juvenile shooting victims in the same time frame — up from 35 this time last year. That's an almost 66% increase.
"Our juvenile shooting victim numbers are the highest we've seen," Desmond told Council. "I looked back 10 years, and this is the highest number we've had in those 10 years. This is a record-breaking, unfortunately, involvement."
It's not the neighborhoods
CPD says the reasons for this grim scenario are complex. According to Desmond, it mostly isn't specific to neighborhoods like the West End — where about 8% of the city's gun violence happened this year.
That's something George Lee thinks is important to stress. He's lived in City West for more than 14 years and has served as the residents' association president there for four. He's also on the West End Community Council.
To him, the complex and the wider West End are a tight-knit community, despite recent tragedies like Davis' shooting and a high-profile infant death in which the mother is a suspect.
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Lee says the shooting that killed Davis is the only so-called mass shooting the complex has seen, and the first time he can remember when a child has died due to gun violence.
"You just hear, 'Well, it's affordable housing, it breeds criminal elements,' " he says. "No. The majority of the people here are good people, law abiding people, they follow the rules. A lot of people from different communities like to hang out down here."
That's part of the problem, Desmond says. Feuds — sometimes fueled by social media — can kick up quickly between loosely associated social groups scattered across the city. Violence that crops up between those groups doesn't necessarily happen in their home neighborhoods.
"What we see is not so much that specific neighborhoods are targeted, and it's not the people living there or from those neighborhoods," she says. "We see movement and fluidity."
Some of that mobility, CPD says, is coming from an uptick in car thefts. That's especially true for certain models of Kia and Hyundai cars, police officials say, which have design elements that make them easy to steal.
CPD also says car thefts and thefts from cars are playing another role in juvenile violence by adding to the supply of guns on the streets. CPD estimates 60% of guns stolen in Cincinnati are taken from cars.
City officials are urging citizens and visitors to the city to secure their guns by leaving them at home or locking them up in their cars.
"If you are leaving your gun in your car and not putting it in a safe, you are directly part of the problem," Council Member Liz Keating said Tuesday. "You are not a responsible gun owner. You are part of the problem of this rise in youth gun violence."
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Officials and residents in neighborhoods like the West End also acknowledge the role trauma plays in the cycle of violence.
In the days following the shooting that killed Davis, social workers fanned out door to door in City West to talk to residents there. They were also available at surrounding public schools to support students who knew Davis or other victims of gun violence.
"It traumatizes them," Lee says. "Beyond the shadow of a doubt. A lot of the kids over that way knew (Davis). They're going to need counseling."