As shootings soar, Cincinnati crime plan reworked again
As Cincinnati Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell changed his yet-to-start summer safety plan for a third time, new statistics show crime's tightened grip across multiple neighborhoods.
Shootings are up almost 29 percent compared to this time last year. Homicides match the 2014 midyear total of 40; both years' six-month tolls represent the highest number seen in the past nine years locally.
Six of Cincinnati's 52 neighborhoods accounted for 50.7% of all shootings: Avondale, Westwood, Over-the-Rhine, West End, Walnut Hills and Winton Hills.
Figures show nearly half of this year's 225 shootings through June 30 involved gang members, although 40 shootings were unclassified. Yet the police department's crime analyst acknowledged shootings involving gang members are not properly recorded.
There are missing cases and large discrepancies between police districts. Only data from two of the city's five districts -- District One and District Four -- are "current and likely valid," according to the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence Update obtained by The Enquirer through a records request.
Until the discrepancies are cleared up, the gang-related crime information will no longer be tracked, wrote Robin Engel, director of the University of Cincinnati's Institute of Crime Science. The institute analyzes crime for the city.
Police rely on the report to determine where to focus resources.
City Manager Harry Black asked for a quality control assessment and said in the future, determinations about whether a crime involved a gang member will be made by officers with direct knowledge of the shooting, instead of in one central place.
Chief Blackwell did not respond to a request for comment. It was the second time this week he did not make himself available to comment about community safety.
That contrasts with the chief's approach just three weeks ago, when, flanked by more than 100 people with the city skyline as a backdrop, he unveiled an anti-violence plan designed to halt the increase in crime.
The anti-crime plan was supposed to start June 21, but was delayed partly due to the death of Officer Sonny Kim on June 19.
"Circumstances have challenged the implementation of the plan," Black said. "I do not view that as a negative. It's actually given us additional time to tweak the plan and seek out additional input, which has improved it."
Among ideas in the initial plan: Rounding up kids in curfew centers, changing all officer shifts to add officers to street patrol, working more closely with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and staffing pools and parks with officers.
Thursday, in an e-mail to the media, the police department released a revised plan, the third such version.
There won't be curfew centers. There won't be massive shift changes.
The release did not say when the plan would start. What prompted the change is unclear.
Key elements of the new plan include starting second shift later to create more overlap with the third shift, pulling some officers out of special assignments and cracking down on casual leave, which is compensation time for hours previously worked. (Annual vacation time will not be denied.)
Fraternal Order of Police President Kathy Harrell derided the original plan from the get-go, saying it would never work. On Thursday, she said she was glad to see the original schedule change was scrapped because it didn't take into account training or vacation days.
"In many cases it would have led to less officers on the street, not more," she said.
And she's glad the curfew centers were eliminated. She feared they would have led to lawsuits.
She hopes the new plan will include support for neighborhood patrols, but said details have yet to emerge.
"As far as how they are going to strengthen patrol, we still don't have those answers," Harrell said. "They are still working it."
In reference to casual leave, Harrell said that is nothing new. "Patrol officers have been denied time off for a very long time," Harrell said.
Black said the curfew centers were dropped because communities were uncomfortable with the idea.
"One of the things that makes Cincinnati a model city for police, community relations is when we seek input, we want it," Black said.
Civil Rights attorney Al Gerhardstein, who helped craft the city's widely hailed Collaborative Agreement, wrote in The Enquirer June 24 that he was concerned that not all elements of the original plan fit into the city's principles.
"Across-the-board enforcement of the curfew ordinance and deploying police to parks and pools neither focus on where the violence is increasing or who is engaged in the violence," he wrote. "Rather, we will sweep mainly youth of color into a zero-tolerance police dragnet that will sour police-youth relations, increase the number of youth running from police and divert large police resources to implementation, all while failing to respond to the data."
Unequal enforcement of the curfew laws and dropping kids off at centers would likely trigger legal issues "that could be avoided through better tactics," he wrote.
Gerhardstein had this to say Thursday evening about the changes in Blackwell's plan.
"We've been communicating," he said. "I've found the chief and other city officials to be very responsive and I think they made the right decision."
This week, to help support police efforts, Cincinnati City Council approved adding 15 officers to the next police recruit class, which was moved to January from the planned February start date. Council is also giving Blackwell $2 million to buy equipment that will help officers file reports from their cars, freeing up time to patrol.
So far this year, there have been 225 shootings, up from 175 during the same time period last year. That's a 28.6 percent increase and a 14.8 percent increase over the five-year median.
Last weekend, three people were killed in homicides, bringing the total deaths from homicides to 40 so far this year.
The new report shows shootings in Avondale, Westwood, Mount Airy and in the area of Clifton Heights, University Heights and Fairview are at a six-year high.
The report showed problems at the city's pools and parks. Nearly 5 percent of the shootings in the first half of the year happened within 500 feet of a pool and just over 7 percent of shootings happened within 500 feet of a park.
Eight of the city's 25 pools overlap with identified gang territory, and nine of the city's 47 parks overlap with identified gang territory, the report said.
Last week, two shootings originated at the Findlay Playground within 24 hours. On June 22, an incident ended with a man being gunned down less than a block away from a march against violence involving more than 100 men. The man, Justin Crutchfield, was chased by gunmen down Race Street where he collapsed from his wounds and later died. The next day at the same playground a man was shot several times. He is expected to survive.
The city manager has called on Blackwell to reduce shootings citywide by 5 percent and reduce overall crime by 10 percent.
Revised: Summer Safety Initiative Plan details
* Youth Services personnel, along with Quality of Life Enhancement Team officers, will monitor parks and playgrounds. This will add 28 officers and three sergeants to the districts.
* The department's second shift will start later.
* A reduction in special assignments, which would add 25-30 more officers on the street.
* Officers' days off will be limited.
* District captains will work two nights a week. Four officers per district will do walking patrols in identified high crime areas.
* The Gang Unit will work closely with district officers to focus on group and gang crime, with an emphasis on gun reduction. Every gun arrest will be referred to the ATF for follow-through where appropriate.
* Citizens on Patrol will assist districts four days a week.
* The chief's office personnel will be in uniform and patrol high-crime and gathering areas three nights a week.
* The city will still host a community "night out" on July 22 with cookouts, festivals and peace rallies.
Reporters Henry Molski and Cameron Knight contributed to this report.