Getting away with murder.
Homicides were on the rise last year across the City of Cincinnati and the majority of those cases remain unsolved. There were 73 homicides of which police have closed 30. Lt Colonel Paul Neudigate tells Newsradio 700WLW's Scott Sloan that while they have only closed 41% of the cases so far, he expects that closure rate to continue to go up as they are still actively investigating 40 of those murders.
While the city saw a 14% increase in the number of homicides last year, the total number of persons shot did not increase significantly. There were 350 shootings in Cincinnati up slightly from the 335 in 2018. Neudigate says the bigger story is that police have been able to reduce the number of shootings 33% since 2015 when 500 people were shot in Cincinnati.
The Assistant Chief says "we have very solid strategies and they are working" to reduce gun violence. One of their tools, Shot Spotter is being expanded in the New Year. The city will increase from 6 square miles to 12 the area of the city covered by the microphones which detect gunfire and instantly notify police to investigate. The new neighborhoods that will be covered include the West End, OTR, Westwood, Millvale and South Fairmount.