COLUMBUS – Overdose deaths, suicides and homicides in Franklin County have gone up by 40 percent or more during the first two months of the year.
UPDATE: This article has been edited to correct tne percentage increase in deaths.
More than twice as many deaths have been reported from those causes in the county so far in 2020 than at the same time last year, Coroner Dr. Anahi Ortiz said.
Ortiz says that there has been a 49 percent increase in overdose deaths between Jan. 1 and Feb. 21 compared with the same time span last year. The number of fatal overdoses went from 73 at this time last year to 109 this year. The coroner’s office attributes much of the increase in overdoses to the fact that more older people are overdosing.
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From Jan. 1 through Feb. 21, 109 people had died from overdoses, homicides and suicides, her office reported.
Ortiz says some of these deaths can be prevented if the community becomes more conscious of people who are vulnerable.
“There is opportunity for people to become more aware of their own children, their family, their neighbors, and maybe just ask the question ‘Are you all right?’” she said.
Columbus Division of Police Chief Thomas Quinlan says law enforcement officials are worried about a 40 percent increase in homicides and in violent crime in general.
“We’re concerned and alarmed by the increase, not just of homicides, but we’ve seen, in the last year a 12 percent increase in felonious assaults,” Quinlan said.
Many of those are examples of people who tried to kill someone else but the victim was saved by fire and medical personnel responding quickly to the scene.
White men are most often the victims of suicides and drug overdoses while young black men have accounted for the majority of homicide victims. Of the victims of the county’s 21 homicides so far this year, 11 have been African-American males under 25.