The man was shot about 10 hours after Biehl held a press conference to address an unrelated drive-by shooting on Nov. 7 that left 5-year-old Maleki Parker dead. During the press conference, the chief announced that, despite efforts to curb it, gun crime with injuries is up about 70 percent from last year. “Unacceptable,” Biehl said. “Intolerable.”
The increase happened primarily between May and August, when there were 56 violent crimes with injuries from firearms in Dayton versus 34 in the same time frame in 2014.
“Up until that point, gun crime in the city had been the lowest of the five-year period (January through April),” he said.” That was also true for 2014, for the entire year. In May, that trend changed.”
Biehl said police studied the trend, but have no sweeping conclusions.
“We looked at the data. We look at the incidents,” he said. “There is a lieutenant that poured over dozens of records of incidents.
“Really, the violence goes across the board — some of it drug-related, some of it gang-related, some of it domestic-related; cases where brothers are shooting each other, friends are shooting each other.”
Biehl said law enforcement was aware of the increase when it started. “We began working on it right away,” he said. “The trend has been somewhat resilient to our efforts, although we have seen some decline in recent months.”
Biehl said enforcement efforts have included 25 operations with various task forces since July in locations based on gun violence data, a cooperative action with the Ohio State Highway Patrol that led to 1,590 traffic stops and nine felony arrests and an aggressive traffic enforcement program.
While the Safe Communities through Aggressive Traffic Enforcement (SCATE) operation made headlines in August because a Dayton police officer told an out-of-state driver that he stopped him in part due to “direct eye contact,” the effort did lead to 10 felony arrests and 23 drunk-driving arrests, officials said.
The chief said prevention efforts include partnering with property owners to increase lighting and security cameras, landlord/tenant screening, newsletters, Coffee with a Cop (which allows citizens to meet face-to-face with officers), neighborhood initiatives and Dayton’s Citizens Police Academy recommendations.
Biehl stressed the need for the public’s help in identifying criminals and places of criminal activity. A tip from a citizen Wednesday night led to the arrest of two people in a Kennedy Avenue residence on felony drug charges.
“We’ve employed a number of enforcement strategies to help contain and reduce this gun violence,” said Biehl, adding that there were 419 officers when he took over in January 2008 and there are now 338. “That’s a lot less officers to detect criminal activity,” he said. “If citizens don’t tell us, don’t assume we know it.”
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