Warning from Judge Pike applies to the entire area

The bucolic, away-from-the-madding crowd, pristine image of Columbiana County was shattered last week by a comment from a prominent resident, a man whose family and political roots run deep. He deserves an attentive ear.
"We are no longer a rural county seemingly immune from the negative, more urban influences about which we have read or heard," said Judge Ashley Pike of the common pleas court as he sentenced Shane A. Mitchell in a drug-related murder case.
A jury found Mitchell guilty last Monday of murder, robbery and tampering with evidence in the beating death of Bradley L. VanHorn of Salem in December last year in a church parking lot.
In sentencing Mitchell to 15 years to life on the murder charge, six years for robbery and three years for tampering with evidence, the judge said the case "is a tragic scenario of alcohol, drugs and an excruciating death." According to testimony, Mitchell hired co-defendant Richard P. Forrester of Lisbon, who pleaded guilty to murder and is serving a 15 to life sentence, to rob VanHorn by pretending to buy him cocaine. The victim's father said his son was killed for $20.
Growing subculture
"The depravity of mind illustrated by the conduct of this defendant and co-defendant is almost impossible to grasp," Pike said. "Tragically, the evidence gives a picture of a subculture that has too long existed in this county and is undoubtedly growing."
But it is a subculture that has largely remained under the radar, until some recent criminal activities in the county, including a riot in East Liverpool last year outside a nightclub, made the headlines.
Judge Pike's warning about growing drug-related violence in Columbiana County and his other comments, in and of themselves, should be a wake-up call not only for county residents, but for residents of all rural and suburban communities in the Mahoning Valley. No county, city, township or village in this region call claim to be totally immune from the kind of crime that has become a familiar sight in Youngstown and was reflected in the VanHorn murder.
Indeed, Boardman Township's aggressive response, including the creation of a police substation on the Market Street corridor that links the community to Youngstown, will soon become the norm rather than exception -- if Judge Pike is correct in his assessment.
Other voices
But he isn't the only prominent officeholder in Columbiana County who sees a change not for the better.
"It's the same message I've been trying to get out," county Prosecutor Robert Herron told The Vindicator. Herron noted that heroin use in the county is skyrocketing and that crime factions from Michigan and New Jersey are competing in Columbiana County to corner the illegal drug market.
It has been established through the arrests and subsequent convictions of individuals involved in the illegal drug trade and related violence in the Valley that the area is being infiltrated not just by out-of-staters, but citizens of Mexico, Colombia and other South American countries.
That is a major problem for local law enforcement agencies. The situation cries out for a federal response because it points to Washington's failure to secure the borders of this country.
We would urge Judge Pike, who has strong ties to the state and national Republican parties, to take his concerns about crime in Columbiana County, in particular, and the Valley, in general, to Columbus and Washington.