Cincinnati Is Smaller Than Chicago. It Wasn’t Safer This Weekend.

This past Juneteenth and Father’s Day weekend, Chicago recorded 46 shooting victims and 8 deaths.

Cincinnati recorded at least 7 shooting victims and 4 deaths.

Consider what those numbers mean together. Chicago has approximately 2.72 million residents. Cincinnati has about 311,000. One city is nearly nine times larger than the other. Yet during the same weekend, Cincinnati suffered half as many fatal shootings as one of the largest cities in America.

The four deaths between Saturday night and Sunday morning tell a story that is harder to dismiss than any statistic. Gunfire killed Kenneth Burton, Theresa Dudley, and Brenea Burton along two blocks of Millvale Court on the west side. Two hours and one minute later, someone shot and killed 18-year-old Cornelius Edrington Jr. at Fairview Park while police cleared a crowd nearby. Four people died before sunrise. Detectives opened two unrelated investigations. Police have not announced suspects in either case.

Those deaths came on top of a spring that had already exhausted the city’s patience. In May alone, gunfire killed 25-year-old Darius Wheeler at Fountain Square. A fight on a Route 46 Metro bus ended when someone shot and killed 52-year-old James Bond near the Cincinnati Zoo. Another shooting near the Northside Transit Center wounded four people. Moreover, the incident sent bullets into surrounding businesses.

One of those businesses was Quality Appliances on Hamilton Avenue. Owner Barry Hensley told FOX19 that a bullet pierced his window and damaged a dryer. He considered relocating until he realized there was nowhere obvious to go.

It’s all over the city,” he said. “That’s the dilemma.

Barry Hensley is a business owner on Hamilton Avenue trying to figure out whether to move his store after bullets came through his window. His conclusion — that there is nowhere to go because the problem is everywhere — is the argument of this column stated more plainly than I can state it.

Cincinnati spent two decades and billions of dollars rebuilding its regional reputation. 3CDC, city government, and private investors transformed Fountain Square, Over-the-Rhine, and the urban core into places people drive in from the suburbs to visit. That work gave Cincinnati something it had lost: a reason for people to come back. Cincinnati’s gun violence in recognizable public places can undo that reputation far faster than it was built. For example, a family that watches a shooting at Fountain Square on the news and reads about a killing on a Metro bus reacts. If they then see four people dead at a park where police were already standing, they do not sort through each case’s individual circumstances before deciding where to spend a Saturday night.

Part of the answer involves an honest look at what Cincinnati is asking its police department to do with the resources it currently has. CPD is budgeted for 1,059 sworn officers but currently has 959 — 100 positions short. Interim Chief Adam Hennie told City Council’s Budget Committee in March that closing the gap through a proposed 5% budget cut would be impossible without layoffs, and that one option already on the table is delaying the next recruit class until fiscal year 2028.

The connection between that staffing gap and last weekend’s Cincinnati gun violence is not simple or direct. I am not arguing that more officers would necessarily have stopped the shootings on Millvale Court or at Fairview Park. Patrol officers struggle to prevent homicides that grow out of personal disputes.

Chronic understaffing creates different problems. Fewer officers can build relationships in neighborhoods before tensions escalate. Crowd management also suffers. Officers were present at Fairview Park, but presence and capacity are not the same thing. Detectives carrying heavier caseloads need more time to develop leads and make arrests. This weakens deterrence for future crimes. Extended overtime shifts also reduce effectiveness across every one of those functions.

A department 147 officers short of its budgeted strength is not operating at full capacity.

Yet city leaders are now discussing further cuts at a moment when the cost of inaction in Cincinnati’s most vulnerable neighborhoods continues to rise.

The solution requires more than staffing, and I want to be honest about that. The Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV), which has operated since 2007 as a focused deterrence strategy connecting law enforcement, community organizations, and social services to reduce group-related gun violence, is doing work that patrol officers alone cannot replicate. However, ACT for Cincy, the city’s public health approach to violence prevention, coordinates more than 130 organizations working in the neighborhoods most affected.

The city’s 2026 Impact Award directed $850,000 toward food access hubs in Avondale, East Price Hill, and the West End, specifically because City Manager Sheryl Long concluded there is a direct connection between food insecurity and gun violence. Additionally, these are not peripheral programs. Instead, they are part of what a functioning public safety strategy looks like. They also operate on limited and often uncertain funding. Moreover, local policy decisions determine whether they survive the next budget cycle.

Every part of the system has to function: law enforcement staffing, prosecution of violent offenders, courts that hold repeat offenders accountable, and community investment that addresses the conditions in which Cincinnati gun violence grows. Whenever any part of that system is underfunded or understaffed, the rest carries more weight than it can bear.

Barry Hensley looked at his broken window on Hamilton Avenue and asked where a person is supposed to go when it is all over the city.

As citizens prepare to vote, the focus should remain on which candidates demonstrate a clear commitment to protecting the communities they serve, supporting effective policing, strengthening the courts’ ability to administer justice, and ensuring that public safety resources are used responsibly and effectively for the benefit of all residents.