The Cincinnati Police Department is increasing its weekend patrols as both the department and the region continue to look for solutions to an uptick in violence.
The department announced on social media Wednesday that it would increase the number of officers patrolling the city on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays throughout the summer. Beginning July 9, the Cincinnati Police Department will add 20-25 bike and patrol officers to city streets.
The officers are working volunteer overtime beyond their regular shifts, Emily Szink, the Cincinnati Police Department's public information officer, tells CityBeat. The summer street additions are highly mobile so they can watch populous areas and immediately respond to incidents.
This mobile squad is paid through the department's regular overtime budget, and these additional officers do not reduce the number of staff already assigned to districts, Szink says.
"What their main goal is, is they are going to be boots on the ground. They're going to be the eyes and the ears, especially our bike patrol officers," Szink says. "It's not for crowd control, it's not for them to say 'Hey, there's too many people, this gathering's too loud.' It's for us to have an extra set of eyes and ears out on the streets to say if there is an issue, they can easily bring this group of a couple dozen people to an incident."
The July 4 shooting that occurred at Cincinnati's Smale Riverfront Park was between two young men who had issues with each other, Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac said earlier this week. The shooting happened just as the park was closing for its 11 p.m. curfew and police were beginning to disperse the crowd of 400-500 people, Isaac said.
16-year-old Milo Watson had died on the scene, while 19-year-old Dexter Wright Jr. died shortly after being hospitalized; several teenage bystanders were injured in Watson's and Wright's crossfire and treated at local hospitals. Isaac said that Watson and Wright likely had encountered each other before the incident at Smale Park near The Banks. The guns used have not yet been recovered.
"For example, if the Smale Park (shooting) would have happened and we had these additional officers out, they could have requested, 'Hey, can we have the additional officers, the additional unit, come down and help us?'" Szink explains. "And within five minutes, they would have had 20-25 extra bodies, which would be huge."
Szink says the increased patrols are an initiative from Isaac, who recently announced that he plans to retire in 2022.
During a briefing on Tuesday, Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley called the escalation of guns to solve teenage arguments "totally unacceptable" and said that state lawmakers who refuse to consider violence-reduction policies are contributing to the region's increase in violence.
Cranley also said that Cincinnati is not alone in experiencing an uptick in gun violence, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. Throughout Ohio, gun sales had increased in 2020, largely as opposition to COVID-19 health regulations. And Ohio is one of the worst states in the nation for gun safety, the Giffords Law Center reported earlier this year.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that gun violence during 2020 spiked in Cincinnati, but for the first half of 2021, the number of homicides were lower than in previous years.
"As many people have reported, shootings are up across the country. This phenomenon is not unique to Cincinnati," Cranley said Tuesday. "(But) Shootings are down this year over last year when they're up in most cities across the country. In fact, year to date, we're down 14%."
Cranley noted that he and Isaac have advocated for red-flag laws that would prevent certain people from legally purchasing guns. In April, the city of Cincinnati also joined a consortium exploring and developing new "smart gun" safety technology to prevent the availability and access to guns that would otherwise, at a moment's notice, lead to fatalities.
Read the Cincinnati Police Department's statement about adding weekend officers.
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