Black-on-black crime rising in Cincy

Associated Press

CINCINNATI

Homicides in Cincinnati increasingly involve a black victim and a black assailant, a trend that has risen through the decade, a newspaper analysis has found.

The figures have become so troublesome that city council plans a special session tonight to discuss the topic, which previously has been limited to conversations about economic development or downtown safety.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports Sunday that since 2005, 86 percent of homicides in which an arrest was made involved black-on-black violence, up from about 75 percent of homicide arrests from 2000 through 2004.

The analysis found eight of 10 homicide victims since 2000 have been black, and finds that all but one of the 66 homicide victims in 2011 was black.

An increasing proportion of homicide victims were black in recent years as well, with the paper’s analysis showing they made up 78 percent of homicide victims from 2000 to 2004, with that proportion rising to 84 percent between 2005 and the present.