Clintonville shooting leaves 1st ’22 homicide

Columbus police worry that trend will continue

At first glance, the brick house on the corner of Indianola Avenue and Weber Road, across the street from Savor Growl beer and wine store, looked like every other home on the street in Columbus’ Clintonville neighborhood.

However, the back porch of one of the house’s four apartment units was the site Tuesday of the city’s first homicide in 2022. And Columbus police are concerned the new year will continue with the same deadly trends seen in 2020 and 2021.

Deputy Chief Tim Becker, who oversees homicide and felony assault detectives, said meetings are set to take place in the next few weeks to figure out how to use the manpower Columbus police have in the best ways possible.

“We expect there to be some hardships in 2022,” Becker said.

There has been a more than 90% increase in the number of homicides reported in the city in 2020 and 2021 over 2018 and 2019, Becker said, and there is nothing to show that a dramatic decrease is in the cards for 2022.

The homicide detective who is considered to be the primary investigator on a case, according to what is considered to be national best practice, should handle no more than four to six cases each year, Becker said. Every homicide detective who had been in the unit for the full calendar year 2021 handled more than that, he said.

“We can’t accept that this is an anomaly anymore,” he said. “We have to prepare for it to be normal. Sadly, we have to staff for 200 homicides now.”

The number of felonious assaults reported in 2021 was more than 1,480, also a dramatic increase over years past.

A class of more than three dozen officers will graduate from the James G. Jackson Columbus Police Academy on Jan. 14 to begin a year of probation, beginning with 15 weeks of field training. Three other classes will start at the academy in 2022, an effort by the city to replace officers, who are leaving the division through retirement and resignations at higher than normal rates.

But those officers will not hit the streets until after their graduations, leaving the division with fewer available officers than in years past.

Council member Emmanuel Remy, who is taking over as chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee following the retirement of Council member Mitchell Brown at the end of 2021, said he is looking forward to working with Public Safety Director Robert Clark and Police Chief Elaine Bryant to “identify more efficient ways of policing to better use the resources we already have.”

“I have full confidence in this new leadership and the millions that we have invested in the past year,” Remy said in a prepared statement. “We will continue to invest to stop this scourge of violence and provide whatever resources this chief needs to be successful. There is plenty of work ahead, and we are all committed to making safety the highest priority in 2022.”

Becker said police are hopeful that programming through the city, community organizations and nonprofit groups will help turn the tide, particularly with youth. A total of 51 young people – nearly a quarter of the city’s 204 homicide victims in 2021 – were 21 years old or younger.

“The longer it continues, the more desensitized the at-risk people will become,” Becker said of the deadly violence. “If you don’t have hope to have a productive life, it’s hard to break the cycle. And that’s a challenge that goes way beyond police.”

As police leadership tackle the issue of staffing, detectives are working to determine who was responsible for Tuesday morning’s homicide.

The shooting was reported around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday on the 2900 block of Indianola Avenue in Clintonville. The man, identified as 25-year-old Andrew Santiago, of North Linden, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

Detectives are still investigating a potential motive, but said a man was seen running from the area after the shooting.

Santiago’s death is the city’s first homicide in 2022.

Anyone with information is asked to call Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614461-TIPS or detectives at 614-645-4730. Tips to Crime Stoppers can be anonymous. bbruner@dispatch.com @bethany_bruner