Deadly year ends, but no one should breathe easy
Now is the time when, with a year like 2021 squarely in the rearview mirror, a big city administration feels it can breathe again.
This might be equally true for hardcharging and do-nothing administrations coming off a year as violent as 2021 was for many large American cities. It is, after all, human nature to feel some relief at the resetting of the clock. Out with the old and in with the new, as they say.
But a hard-charging administration would not idle for long, not having faced the kind of carnage we saw last year.
More than 200 people were killed in Columbus, the most on record.
Adjusted for population, that makes 2021 on par with 1991 as the worst for deadly violence in Columbus.
As last year progressed and the body count grew, we saw various displays of hand-wringing from various city officials, primarily Mayor Andrew J. Ginther. We heard promises that steps were being taken, changes being made, new tactics being unleashed to slow the bloodshed. Specifics, predictably, were few and far between.
The year-end tally makes it clear how well it all worked.
It wasn’t hard to predict that we’d end up here. I did in June, when I wrote in an open letter to new Police Chief Elaine Bryant that we could hit 200 killings if the status quo prevailed.
I’ve never meant to suggest, though, that there are simple solutions to the reduction of lethal violence, and I certainly don’t have them. There are myriad stressors, many deeply rooted and entangled with other societal problems that have dogged Columbus for decades.
But there is little question about this: You don’t reduce violence with vague assurances made during intermittent and interchangeable news conferences, a schedule that is broken up by long stretches in your office at City Hall.
The new count is already ticking. Wait until the end of January and we’ll be at 15 homicides. Keep on waiting; the body count won’t wait with us.
So, what to do?
I renew the call I made this time last year, that the Ginther administration provide a detailed accounting of its antiviolence efforts, dollar for dollar. We’re told the city is investing in these efforts, and we see what the results have been. A thorough look at the books is long overdue.
This includes the city’s partnership with the National Network for Safe Communities. We know the city teamed up with the network to conduct a study of the ongoing violence, what is driving it, and who is behind it. It was a promising step forward that yielded valuable information, much of it already known.
The city, still telegraphing that it did not see the urgency in all this violence, sat on that study for months before releasing it to the public.
What’s happened since then? More assurances, more hand-wringing, more killing.
Outside of this immediate and full accounting, 2022 must be the year that the city acts on a recommendation to create an Office of Violence Prevention.
This idea was raised by Franklin County’s coroner, Dr. Anahi Ortiz, in 2020. That’s right. Not last year. The year before that.
“We cannot expect religious leaders or our pediatricians or our local organizations to singlehandedly and separately tackle this huge and growing problem,” she said in an August 2020 letter to The Dispatch.
She renewed her calls early last year, saying a lack of coordination was kneecapping otherwise good local efforts. It was, and remains, an accurate assessment.
This office should fall under the city’s health department. Above all, this is a public health crisis. I renew my suggestion that Ortiz lead it. If not Ortiz, someone outside the current mayoral administration must lead it. Someone with guts, vision, expertise, and — knowing how these things tend to go — an acceptance that they might be out of a job in a year if they stand firm and do what needs to be done.
When Ortiz raised this idea again in March, Ginther responded by saying he would not engage in a back-and-forth with her.
“I respect her opinion, but the people we work for hire us to solve problems, not lob criticisms,” he said.
The key part of that remark is smack in the middle. “The people we work for hire us to solve problems.”
There is no time for this city to breathe easy. Not when so many are taking their last breaths. tdecker@dispatch.com @Theodore_decker