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Late surge gives city 26 homicides for year
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A late surge in violence in the fall and early winter, punctuated by two homicides Sunday, has given Youngstown 26 homicides for 2018.
The number is two fewer than in 2017.
Sunday’s homicides cap a period of violence compressed into a short amount of time. Since Oct. 14, Youngstown recorded 13 homicides, one of those a double homicide and another a triple homicide.
The city has averaged roughly 25 homicides a year since 2011.
Police Chief Robin Lees said the late surge in violence last year bucks a trend that typically most homicides occur in warm-weather months. He said this is the second year since he has been chief that the homicide rate peaked in the fall and early winter. Lees has been chief since 2014.
Chief of Detectives Capt. Brad Blackburn and Lees both said most of the homicides have one common theme, the same theme that has been responsible for a majority of homicides almost every year: drugs.
Blackburn said many homicides result from robberies of drug dealers, are revenge killings for previous robberies or stem from unhappiness over a deal made with a dealer.
He said often the victim’s relationship with the killer is casual at best.
“That relationship is a lot of times their downfall,” Blackburn said.
According to Vindicator files, detectives have made arrests in seven 2018 cases, charging eight suspects. In 2017, police made arrests in 16 of 28 homicides.
Lees said just because some cases have not been solved does not mean they will remain unsolved. He said there are several good leads in those cases, particularly in those that occurred since Oct. 14. Detectives are awaiting results of tests on evidence before filing charges. He said he expects arrests in a number of those cases.
“There’s not many [cases] we’ve run into dead ends yet,” Blackburn said. “It just takes time.”
“I’m confident we are making progress, and this will lead to arrests in the future,” Lees said.
UPTICK ON WEST SIDE
One area that has experienced a slight increase in homicides is the West Side, which had five homicides last year and four in 2017. From 2001 to 2016, the West Side had 20 homicides. All the homicides in the past two years on the West Side have taken place within the Mahoning Avenue corridor.
Lees said that is part of a trend of increased crime in recent years on the West Side.
A few years ago, Youngstown State University studied the city’s 911 calls and determined that because of the number of calls, an additional car was added to the West Side, Car 208. The West Side now has three cars; at one time, it had only one.
Lees said the area Car 208 patrols is one of the smallest in the city, but the ratio of calls it takes, as well as the ratio of calls deemed “serious” it takes, is one of the highest in the city.
Changing demographics is one reason for more crime in that area, Lees said. He said data has shown the number of low-income people on the West Side has grown in recent years, and studies generally show a link between poverty and crime.
Last year’s five homicides on the West Side is the most in that part of town since 2011, when there were three homicides. Two of those victims, however, were victims of a double homicide.
From 2001-2018, the city averaged about 26.5 homicides per year, with a high of 39 in 2007. From 2001-2010 the city averaged 28.9 homicides a year. From 2011 to 2018, the city averaged about 23.6 homicides a year, with a high of 28 in 2017.
Since 2011, the city has recorded 189 homicides.