Homicide rates this year in many Northeast Ohio cities will top last year. And law enforcement officials are looking for answers.
As of earlier this week Cleveland’s homicide rate stands at 135. That’s 14 more than last year. That’s the highest in a decade topping 2007 when 134 were recorded. The biggest per capita jump is in Lorain where there have been eleven killings this year compared to just one last year. Buddy Sivert is a supervisor in the Lorain Police Department’s detective bureau. He says the homicides have been driven by a variety of reasons including domestic violence and robberies, but he doesn’t have an answer for the spike.
“If it was gang related or related to a certain business like a bar, then we could pinpoint that bar or that gang and go after it. But this has been a strange year. I’ve been with the police department for 25 years and I’ve never seen a year like this.”
Sivert says 10 of the 11 killings in Lorain have been solved.
In Canton, the 2016 homicide rate stands at 12, which is three more than last year. Akron has recorded 30, which is two more than 2015.
Northeast Ohio is not an exception when it comes to the increase in killings. Nearly every major U.S. city experienced an increase this year.
