‘This has been building’: Cleveland could approach homicide mark of 1982, data shows (2024)

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The year’s never-ending violence began early in Cleveland.

Martin Muniz killed four people in a rage-filled shooting Jan. 13 in the city’s Brooklyn Centre neighborhood on the West Side, according to police and prosecutors.

The attack began a year of tragedy. Cleveland could reach homicide figures this year that it hasn’t recorded since the 1980s, when the city’s population was much greater.

An analysis by cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer of the more than 100 slayings so far this year shows that many of the killings took place in East Side neighborhoods, away from downtown. Far fewer happened on the West Side.

Most of those slain were men in their 20s and 30s, though women were victims in about one in 10 slayings.

Those killed spanned the ages: The youngest, Say’Ge Ross, was a year old when he died in March. Officials attributed the death to blunt force trauma. The incident took place at a home in Mount Pleasant. One of the oldest, Clinton Davis, was 65 when he was shot in February at the Crestview Estates in Old Brooklyn.

Some city officials attribute the jump in violence to lax gun legislation passed by state lawmakers. Others cite an unmatched brazenness by youths with weapons.

Councilman Michael Polensek, the chairman of Cleveland City Council’s Public Safety Committee, said he hasn’t seen this level of violence in the 44 years he has served on council. He said his constituents have demanded a greater police visibility, a nighttime curfew and the enforcement of nuisance laws.

“This didn’t happen yesterday; this has been building for over a year,” Polensek said.

In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, crime was on the rise in Cleveland, and the city ended the year with 192 homicides. It hasn’t seen that number of violent deaths since 1982, when there were 195.

In the 1970s, homicides reached as high as 333, data shows. That came at a time when the city had more than 500,000 residents.

The homicide total dropped to 171 in 2021, then to 168 last year. The city’s population, however, hovered at about 372,000 in 2020.

By the end of June this year, the city had recorded more than 90 homicides. The pace picked up in July, as at least 20 slayings were reported.

Through mid-August, Cleveland police have investigated at least 117 homicides. The number is likely to change, pending further investigation from the Cuyahoga County medical examiner’s office.

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and other city leaders have called on state and federal officials to assist the city.

“Any life lost to violence is unacceptable, and the trends we are currently experiencing are tragic,” a Bibb spokesman said in an email to cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

Homicides were up throughout the city nearly 30% through July, compared to the same time last year, city records show. Many homicides took place on the East Side, where a high number of slayings are clustered in the neighborhoods of Glenville, Hough and Buckeye, which are also some of the poorest in the city.

While city leaders have long been concerned about safety in downtown, the analysis by cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer found that three slayings have taken place there through mid-August. Security, however, remains a major concern, as nine people were shot at a West Sixth Street nightclub last month, and the area is among the worst neighborhoods in the city when it comes to car thefts.

Mass shootings have also jumped.

Police and prosecutors said Muniz, 41, shot and killed his father, Miguel Gonzalez, 68; his sister, Angelic Gonzalez, 34; his nephew, Jayden Baez, 16; and Anthony Boothe, 48, Angelic’s husband. Boothe’s 8-year-old daughter also was shot, but she survived the attack.

Muniz has denied the allegations. One of his attorneys, Thomas Shaughnessy, declined to comment.

A second mass shooting took place on May 31 in Cleveland’s Forest Hills neighborhood. Shameka Lundy, 31, was fatally shot in the chest in the 400 block of East 123rd Street. She died the next day.

In the same incident, a 24-year-old woman and a 29-year-old man suffered gunshot wounds to the leg. A 27-year-old man was shot in the hand.

Women were killed in at least a dozen slayings, and nearly all of them resulted from gun violence, according to the analysis.

Jovon Lynch, 34, of Cleveland was fatally shot Feb. 8 while inside a vehicle on Huntmere Avenue, near East 161st Street. Police later identified the shooter, saying it was her child’s father, Joshua Lynch. He has been accused of kidnapping their 7-year-old daughter and dropping her off at Elyria’s police station. He has denied the allegations.

Three months later, Ataiya Gordon, 23, and Bianca Mason, 31, died in a shooting on East 76th Street and Korman Avenue in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood. Another woman was shot in the leg.

More guns, more violence?

Daniel Flannery, a professor at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University, said more gun violence has emerged because guns are so much more accessible.

Guns have been used in numerous carjackings, which have doubled this year over the same period last year.

“You have to go through a whole gamut of things like who’s purchasing guns used in crimes, whether legally or illegally,” Flannery said. “You have to look at who is converting weapons illegally and who is using them, and not just in fatal homicides, but we need to pay closer attention to the non-fatal gun violence incidents.”

Cleveland officials blamed the state’s permitless carry law that was passed last year as a catalyst for more gun crime. But officials have fought back. Gov. Mike DeWine said the state has funneled millions of dollars into Cleveland to help curtail crime. He has also ordered troopers of the Ohio State Highway Patrol into the city to help Cleveland police with the enforcement of traffic and crime.

Last month, Bibb unveiled a city initiative, Raising Investment in Safety for Everyone, RISE, to reduce crime by pushing new technologies and partnerships with state and federal agents to solve crime faster.

Cuyahoga County sheriff’s deputies and U.S. marshals have joined state troopers in helping Cleveland police patrol city streets.

“These partnerships are critical to deter, solve and hopefully curtail violent crime – whether that’s through additional traffic enforcement, extra patrols, warrant sweeps or hotspot targeting,” the spokesman for Bibb said.

The city has expanded its ShotSpotter program – audio detection software that picks up gun sounds and alerts law enforcement to their location. City officials said its use has saved six lives, as officers have been able to respond faster and render aid more quickly to those who have been shot.

The program has helped police recover 25 guns and make 23 arrests this year, according to a city spokesman.

Flannery said he expects to see a drop in crime stemming from the partnerships, but he also warned that crimes could be spread to other areas.

“There’s a lot of evidence that if you pay particular attention to a targeted area, then you will decrease the level of violent crime while you’re doing that interdiction; in some ways, you then need to be careful about whether you’re just dispersing the crime to the surrounding areas,” Flannery said.

The youngest victims

The analysis by cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer found that about one in 10 who died violently were 18 or younger. Many more youths have been arrested and charged with carjackings or slayings that involve firearms.

On Jan. 10, just days after students returned to classes after the holiday break, Pierre McCoy, 18, was shot at a bus stop in front of several students at John Adams College and Career Academy.

Accidents with guns, unfortunately, also hit the young.

In May, a 7-year-old girl was in critical condition after she was shot by her younger brother in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood. And on July 30, Brandon Cleveland, 13 was fatally shot by an 11-year-old on East 98th Street and Union Avenue in Cleveland’s Union Miles neighborhood.

“These younger and younger kids, they’re just growing up around guns, and they’re told that they need to have a gun for protection at all times,” Flannery said.