Enquirer: Cincinnati's record pace of homicides slows
Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Streicher is crediting that city's tougher stance on criminals who use guns in the commission of their crimes for slowing what was a record pace of homicides this year.
The program, known as Project Safe Neighborhoods, was created nearly two years ago in response to the city's most violent summer in decades.
Streicher says the homicide numbers, while only a modest improvement over last year, are "a tangible result" of the gun program.
While we agree that these "get tough on criminals" programs work (more to follow), it's hard to credit a program that's been in effect for two years, for a sudden, two-week decrease in homicides. Could there be a much-more likely, self-defense-related reason for the reprieve?
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Project Safe Neighborhoods programs, which are being given credit for crime reduction in both Cincinnati and Dayton.
The programs allow county prosecutors to more easily identify suspects who are good candidates for federal gun charges - and the longer prison sentences that go with those charges. The programs find their roots in Virginia's much-lauded Project Exile.
We are 100% in favor of prosecuting criminals who use guns to the fullest extent of the law. But there is a MUCH more likely reason for the sudden slowed pace of homicides in Cincinnati:
The highly-publicized defensive shooting of an armed robber in Cincinnati, and a grand jury's subsequent refusal to indict McKinney is no doubt fresh in criminal's minds. Time and again, real-life experience proves that when criminals will choose other targets if they are aware that their potential victims may be armed.
What the Cincinnati chief of police did not say in the story lauding a recent slow in the pace of homicides is that Cincinnati's violent crime rate so far this year is up 37.1 percent compared to the same period in 2000.
If the city of Cincinnati truly wants to see an impact on the rash of violent crime and homicides that plague their citizens, the mayor, city council and police chief should get behind efforts to pass HB12, and then publicize the increase in training programs and firearms purchases, as Minnesota and Colorado are doing.
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