In Columbus, a deadly year

Rise in homicides mirror national trend

With big-city status comes big-city problems, as evidenced by the homicide count during the past week in Columbus.

On Thursday, Columbus recorded its 42nd homicide. Police had previously noted that the number of violent deaths had risen suddenly, as is the trend nationally.

From Sunday night to Monday morning, another three people died from gunshot wounds. The new homicide total, 45, represented a 55 percent increase from the 29 homicides counted at the same time last year.

And the tally continues. Tuesday, Columbus police found a partially decomposed body of an older, white male in a Hilltop apartment and said the death seems “suspicious.” Could this be No. 46? Or maybe that happened overnight in another area of town.

Other big cities are suffering, too, and have been for awhile. “U.S. cities saw 6,407 homicides in 2016, an 11 percent increase from the year before,” Time.com reported, citing the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which collected data from 61 metropolitan police agencies. Even smaller cities with typically low murder rates are seeing the trend. Arlington, Texas, for instance, had four homicides in all of 2015, but 18 last year.

The increase in homicides is, of course, a crime issue. But homicide is also a social contagion. Deaths leave permanent scars on families, ripping parents from children and children from parents. The trauma lasts. Studies have shown that community homicides, even those not witnessed directly, can affect a child’s reading and vocabulary scores — cognitive skills predictive of later educational success, health and even criminal activity. And women who suffer stress from living in violent neighborhoods might be at higher risk for premature births, a factor in central Ohio’s high infant mortality rate.

We can’t shrug off these murders as a temporary trend, unfortunately. Many shootings result from intractable criminal behaviors, such as gang violence, drugs and domestic violence.

A rise in homicides also likely reflects a rise in shootings where the victim survived. But police don’t track these separately; they’re lumped in with felonious assaults, such as stabbings. If not for central Ohio’s topnotch system of highly trained medics and hospitals, our homicide rates would be far worse.

“From the time the Columbus fire department was called to the time I was in the operating room was 12 minutes,” Dr. Michael Shay O’Mara, who oversees trauma and acute-care surgery for Ohio Health, said of a recent case. “We know with gunshot wounds, every minute matters.”

Ohio Health Grant Medical Center has opened a third trauma bay.

One reason for our spike in homicides might be that the shooters are firing multiple shots at multiple people. Police have already investigated six double homicides this year; victims included best friends, brothers and a couple. And homicides are occurring in the most unlikely places: A March 11 shooting at a sweet 16 party left two wounded and one dead.

In the first fatal shooting Sunday night, in Weinland Park, nearly 20 people called 911. Some callers reported hearing seven shots, others as many as 30. Thomas Louis Drewry, 34, was killed and two men ages 32 and 36 were also shot. But the number of wounded goes deeper.

“We’ve got all our kids laying down on the ground,” a woman inside a home told a 911 dispatcher. “We could hear (the bullets) hitting the bricks.”

The children had been eating dinner in the kitchen when they had to take cover.

Still ahead is the long, hot summer.