🕹️ Game room: A West Dayton elementary school unveiled a gaming room inside the building, which the principal says will provide an incentive for students to attend school and for good behavior and grades.
🌎 Unusual: An earthquake in Springboro late last month was the first one recorded in Warren County and the second reported in the Miami Valley in the last 50 years.
Today, we also take an in-depth look at how Dayton’s homicide rate compares with other high-crime cities were President Trump wants to send in the National Guard.
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Dayton murder rate among nation’s highest as Trump sends troops to high-crime cities
As President Donald Trump proposes sending the National Guard to Chicago and Baltimore after deploying them in Washington D.C. to address crime, federal data shows Dayton among the nation’s highest-crime cities.
• Dayton homicide ranking: FBI crime data indicate that Dayton last year had the seventh-highest homicide rate in the nation per capita. Dayton last year reported 29.7 incidents per 100,000 people. Cleveland ranked one spot higher (No. 6).
• Comparisons: Dayton’s homicide rate was higher than Chicago and Washington, D.C. Dayton also had a significantly higher rate of violent crime than Chicago or the nation’s capital. Dayton also had more auto thefts and burglaries per capita than those two cities and Baltimore.
• 2024 numbers: The Dayton Police Department recorded 44 killings and cases of non-negligent manslaughter last year, which was a 47% increase from 2023, and the most killings since 2020. The police department said last year there were 512 violent crimes that involved a firearm, which was up 14% from 2023.
• What the mayor is saying: “Recent reports have placed Dayton among the top 10 to 15 cities in certain violent crimes,” Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr. said. “These rankings reflect complex challenges, including concentrated poverty and social inequities, but they do not capture the full scope of our efforts to make Dayton safer.”
• Addressing violent crime: Mims said the city is addressing violent crime through technology, personnel and community programs. He said the city is working to increase police staffing levels and the police department has been utilizing public safety tools like automated license plate readers, security cameras, drones and a Real Time Crime Center to prevent and solve crimes.
• Trump’s federal response: President Trump recently called Chicago and Baltimore unsafe “hellholes.” He said he has obligation to protect these cities and he vowed to deploy troops to the Windy City.
• Troops coming to Ohio? There is no indication that Trump is considering sending troops to Ohio’s cities to try to crack down on crime, though the state of Ohio sent 150 members of its National Guard to Washington D.C. to participate in patrols and guard federal buildings.
• Census numbers: Dayton has a population of about 136,345 people, making it the 214th largest city in the United States. Dayton is the heart of the Dayton Metropolitan Area, which consists of three counties and is the 77th largest metro area in the nation.