By Olivia Mitchell
cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday announced an ongoing partnership targeting repeat violent offenders and crime hotspots in Cleveland.
The violence reduction initiative unites local, state, and federal agencies, including Cleveland police, Cuyahoga County prosecutors, the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and the FBI, ATF and U.S. Marshals Service.
“These are data-driven, focused operations where the most violent offenders are the ones who are targeted,” DeWine told reporters. “We’re surging into the areas where people are illegally carrying guns and firing them in the streets and the areas where people are being carjacked.”
Cleveland has recorded 88 homicides so far this year, according to police data. Last year, it had 96 through Nov. 4.
In July 2023, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb reached out to DeWine after a shooting wounded nine people in the city’s Warehouse District. Since then, law enforcement agencies have seized more than 1,000 illegal guns, made 1,400 felony arrests, and recovered stolen vehicles and large quantities of drugs in Cleveland.
“Public safety is a team project,” Bibb said. “The men and women of our police department can’t do it alone. Federal law enforcement has played a critical role, and state law enforcement has played a great role, as well.”
A statewide analysis from the Ohio Department of Public Safety spanning nearly five decades found that violent crime is heavily concentrated among repeat offenders.
The data show that 69% of individuals arrested for violent crimes in Ohio between 1974 and 2023 had been arrested more than once. Repeat offenders with five or more arrests accounted for one-third of all arrests.
For weapons offenses, the pattern was even more pronounced: 80% of arrests involved repeat offenders, and half involved people with five or more prior arrests, according to the report.
During Monday’s press conference at Cleveland’s Third District police station on Chester Avenue , officials displayed seized firearms, including weapons modified to be fully automatic and guns later connected to homicides through ballistic evidence and the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley addressed the growing involvement of youth in violent crime.
“We are trying to work with juveniles. But at some point, the crimes they commit dictate that they need to be removed from society,” O’Malley said.
He added that the county has been working with the Ohio Department of Youth Services to invest in programs aimed at rehabilitating young offenders and helping them stay on track.
DeWine said he plans to ask the state legislature to pass laws similar to federal statutes that impose lengthy prison sentences for gun possession by prohibited persons.
“You have to get the violent repeat offenders off the streets,” DeWine said. “You have to lock them up, and you have to keep them locked up.”
The joint initiative will continue focusing resources on neighborhoods with higher rates of gun violence and other violent crimes, with officials emphasizing there are no plans to scale back enforcement efforts.
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