COLUMBUS – Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther has scheduled a Wednesday news conference to discuss public safety and community-police relations as the city’s murder rate eclipsed a 10-year high Tuesday with the death of a 26-year-old man in a shooting on the Southeast Side.
After steadily declining since 2010, the 111 homicides in the first 10 months of the year eclipses a 10-year high of 110 set in 2008 and brings to total closer to the record of 139 killings in 1991.
DeAngelo Marquis Smith became the 111th homicide victim of 2017 after being shot inside a vehicle in the 3000 block of Tradan Drive. Homicide Unit Sgt. Jeff Strayer says it looks like Smith was being robbed when he was shot and he tried to drive away, making it only a few hundred yards before crashing into a tree.
Smith’s death followed those of two other men, both victims of violent crimes who died of injuries received days earlier.
Dwaynel Howard, 51, died at Grant Medical Center Saturday evening after being shot Friday night in the area of S. Hamilton Road and Melroy Avenue, the 109th homicide of the year, and 29-year-old Michael Scarberry died Sunday night at Mt. Carmel West Hospital from injuries he suffered on Oct. 17 when police say he was brutally kicked and punched by a group of four or five men in the area of Sullivant and Brehl Avenues on the West Side.
There are no suspects or arrests listed in any of the three cases, according to Homicide Unit investigators.
Ginther is also expected to address the relations between police and the community.
Almost 20 years after the federal government sued Ohio’s largest city alleging police routinely violated residents’ civil rights, records reviewed by The Associated Press show that Columbus is facing more than two dozen civil rights complaints.
Documents also show that the city has paid more than $4 million to individuals who alleged civil rights violations over the past decade.
Recent police shootings have alarmed local clergy and activists, who want more officers trained to deal with individuals experiencing mental health crises and trained in ways to eliminate racial bias.