Slayings total 34; 7 victims are teens

A grieving mother pushes for witnesses to cooperate with police.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The mother of the youngest boy shot to death in 2005 says witnesses must start to help the police.
"By being quiet, you're part of our problem in Youngstown, not part of the solution," said 34-year-old Alexandra Dawson of West Ravenwood Avenue. "Let's be part of the solution and stop the violence."
Her son, Alex Dawson, 14, was shot in the head Oct. 20 at a house on Stewart Street on the East Side. His 19-year-old friend was critically wounded.
The city recorded 34 homicides in 2005, a dozen more than 2004. The highest number of homicides -- 68 -- occurred in 1995.
Of the seven teenagers killed in 2005, Alex Dawson was the youngest. The oldest victim was a 66-year-old North Side man police said was killed in his home during a robbery.
The South Side was the deadliest side of town, with 16 homicides. The East Side had 11, the North Side had six, and one victim was shot to death downtown at the intersection of East Federal and East Boardman streets.
Unsolved murder
Alexandra Dawson, a single mom, cried as she described the unsolved murder of her teenage son. She has three other children, a boy 13, and two girls, 11 and 9.
She recalled Alex's generosity and compassion for friends who didn't have a stable home life. She said some of them spoke at his funeral.
"I worked a lot, so Alex was a homemaker. He cooked dinner for the children, kept the house clean," the grieving mother said. "He was doing much better in school. He went to church."
Dawson said her son had some behavioral problems, but nothing to do with drugs or guns. She said he got involved with the wrong crowd because he felt he should protect his friends.
"We lived on the East Side, and I heard rumors about those young men and I told him not to hang out with them, but he had a heart for people he felt were being neglected," Dawson said. "He would take food out of my house and give it to neighborhood kids."
Dawson said she wants to use her income tax refund and hold a gathering March 26, Alex's birthday, to start a grass-roots movement to help detectives.
"We need to send a message that it's time to stand up to protect our city. We need to help the police. We can't keep sitting around doing nothing," Dawson said. "When the detectives come to investigate, the majority of people say they saw nothing, and these are minor kids getting killed -- we've got to stop being scared."
Lack of cooperation
Homicide detectives often lament the lack of cooperation they encounter at shooting scenes. Witnesses, detectives say, fear retribution.
Dawson said she has talked to people who live on the street where her son was killed and learned that witnesses saw what happened, but they won't tell the police.
"Everybody knows who did it; they're just so scared," Dawson said. "People have to get involved. I'm going to try my best."
Lt. Robin Lees, police department spokesman, said last year's homicides showed an upsurge in domestic-related deaths and some from feuding families. He said drugs were also a significant factor with shootings over territory.
The common denominator, Lees said, in reducing violent crime has been the jail population. The more people locked up, both potential perpetrators and victims, the lower the homicide rate, he said.
Tied to jail
Lees said the lowest homicide total in recent years was recorded in 2003, when 19 were killed. He said the city filled the jail that year during the Gun Reduction Interdiction Project.
The jail population ballooned to more than 800 that summer and fall during GRIP. It was then that Akron lawyers filed an inmates' class-action lawsuit, which succeeded in federal court in March. Since then, under a federal judge's order, the jail population has been capped at 296; it can hold 564.
meade@vindy.com