Latest killing in Youngstown demands crime crackdown

Youngstown has been here before. It's been outraged by violence and senseless murder, by children being exposed to the death that comes from gang wars and turf battles.
Before looking at the latest event to offend the sensibilities of a community, take a look back
The day after Thanksgiving, 1962, a bomb planted in the car of racketeer Cadillac Charlie Cavallaro killed him and his 11-year-old son behind their Roslyn Drive home. A week later, a letter was delivered from a Youngstown airman stationed in Duluth, Minn., to his parents, addressed to Mrs. and Mrs. John Diacin, 232 Carroll St., Murdertown, Ohio. Such was the national reputation of Youngstown, thanks to the gangland slayings of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The same day that letter was delivered, U.S. Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy pledged to Mayor Harry Savasten the support of the U.S. Justice Department in breaking the hold of organized crime on the city.
But there was another series of gangland slayings less than 20 years later, and another federal crackdown.
New tone
Murder in Youngstown took on a new tone with the beginning of the 1990s. Youngstown led the state in its per capita murder rate for many years during that decade, and was often near the top in national statistics.
There was the Labor Day Massacre of 1991, when four young men were executed in an East Side home.
The 53rd and last homicide of 1993 was a 17-year-old Baltimore girl killed in a dispute over an athletic jacket. She was visiting relatives here.
In 1995 it was reported that homicide records were being broken as gangs preyed on youth. Youngstown entered the era of the drive-by shooting.
In 1996, a three-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet during a shoot-out on Oak Park. (That death came a week after the city's last "traditional" gangland slaying, the execution of Ernest A. Biondillo in the new Cadillac he was driving.)
In 1998, a four-year-old boy was killed by a bullet from an assault rifle that penetrated the walls of his bedroom while he slept.
In 2002, a 15-year-old New Castle girl was killed by a bullet fired into the car she was riding in on I-680.
Elderly couples have been murdered in their homes or while working on rental property in the city. Children have been killed by stray bullets. A YSU student was gunned down outside a party. But the largest single category of killings have been disputes over drugs and territory. Looking through the clippings for those years, the percentage of teenage victims, starting at just 15 years old, is alarming and sobering.
In the 1990s, Youngstown recorded 509 homicides, the worst toll being 68 in 1995.
But Saturday afternoon there was yet another wake-up call for the city. Hundreds of parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters at the old South High Stadium, there for a youth league football game, watched in horror as Larry D. Jones, 31, of Ravenwood Avenue, was shot multiple times by another man in the stands. Jones climbed over a rail onto the sideline where he collapsed near a group of pre-teen cheerleaders. The assailant followed Jones and shot him again as he lay on the ground. Family members say the shooting followed a long-standing dispute.
The immediate reaction was to question the lack of security at the game. But security isn't the issue. The lack of respect for the rule of law and the value of human life are issues that corrupt a community beyond the ability of any cadre of security guards.
Uncooperative witnesses
It is disturbing that police say the early investigation was hampered by the unwillingness of witnesses to step forward out of fear for their personal safety. Lawlessness is inevitable when ordinary citizens can -- or won't -- take a stand.
Just a week ago, the chairman of city council's safety committee met with the police chief, the city's three municipal court judges and the county juvenile court judge to discuss the need for a coordinated attack on violence.
That effort should get new impetus, given Saturday's killing. City, county, state and federal authorities must react now as they did four decades ago to remove this latest scourge from the city.
By one definition, insanity is doing the same thing over and over, always getting the same, unsatisfactory result. The violence in Youngstown is insane. The response should not be.