Community leaders brainstorm solutions to youth violence in Cincinnati weeks after downtown attacks

CINCINNATI — Finding solutions to youth violence in Cincinnati was at the heart of a community safety meeting at City Hall.

“We need more reformative programs — programs that help transform youth behavior, transform their thinking, also making them aware of real-life consequences of behavior,” said Candice Tolbert, executive director at SuperSeeds.

Tolbert said her organization is engaged in youth behavior and solutions to youth problems.

“It is our community, it is our youth, and they are the future of our community,” Tolbert said.

Community activist Iris Roley led the meeting to get city leaders, nonprofits, community activists, companies and school officials all in one place to talk about an uptick in youth violence downtown.

“Our children are showing us in so many ways how much trauma in their lives,” Roley said. “And it's coming out, it has just come out in ways that we've not seen before.”

Jessica Hart

Jillian Desmond, a senior crime analyst for Cincinnati police, provided data on juveniles committing crimes.

“We’re talking 200% increases. In 2022, we had about 10 juvenile suspects in our shootings and that jumped to 33 in 2023,” Desmond said.

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Desmond said that number only includes the crimes they know about.

She also went over the number of youth shootings that have happened since 2022, injuries and the location of these crimes. She shared a graphic showing the hotspots of juvenile suspects and victims.

“A lot of these places have overlap. If you look deeper into where these hotspots actually are they’re usually places that people are sleeping, working, for juveniles it’s going to school, or they’re playing, or some combination of the three of those,” Desmond said.

Desmond also said there was an uptick in the number of car thefts involving guns from 2020 to 2023.

“We saw a 77% increase from just where our baseline would be, so that's 120 more guns than what we would normally see just being stolen from a car alone,” Desmond said. “That doesn’t count the fact that we did have a general increase in general thefts.”

Hamilton County Juvenile Court and the county prosecutor's office also gave presentations talking about their challenges, goals and how the community can support them.

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“When you talk about the prosecutor's office, their job is to put away youth, they even at the table to collaboratively do something to cause the youth not to go to jail or maybe other alternatives,” said Derrick Rogers, program manager for the community partnering center at the Urban League.

Rogers said he would like to see more parental intervention and problem-solving of some of the root causes like poverty and systemic racism.

“It’s going to take a collaborative effort between all organizations and the community in order to problem solve this matter,” he said.

Hamilton County Court Administrator Liz Igoe said the court is trying to become more proactive instead of reactive.

“This court owes the community an apology because we have not been at the table in a meaningful way to try and help the systemic change that needs to happen,” she said.

Igoe said a lot of the juveniles carrying guns are carrying them for the same reason adults are.

“Because they are afraid for their own safety,” she said.

Dohn Community High School officials also spoke at the meeting. Their students have been using Metro services, which drop them off downtown at Government Square. Police Chief Teresa Theetge pointed to the school as a contributing factor to youth violence.

“We are trying to put more positive feedback with our students,” said Bill Geraghty, operations manager at Dohn.

He said the school is trying to implement more positive behavior intervention support (PBIS) and find new ways to partner with parents and guardians. One of the challenges they are facing is getting ahold of some of the students' parents.

“Eleven percent of our student population is homeless,” he said.

Roley also cleared up a misconception she heard about Dohn students.

“People are making the sad mistake that it is just Dohn children that are doing things downtown, that’s incorrect. We should not associate children with a school. They belong to all of us,” she said.

Leaders said they know they can't solve the issue overnight, but when they looked around the room, they felt they were a little closer to a solution.