CLEVELAND — Gunfire in downtown Cleveland ended one man’s life and left three others wounded in two separate shootings.
The violence comes two weeks after a mass shooting on W. 6th Street in the Warehouse District that wounded nine people.
Police are investigating a homicide just outside Progressive Field at E. 9th Street and Bolivar Road, and three people were shot outside a bar on Old River Road in the East Bank of the Flats.
“If you get into a dispute and you think somebody else has a gun and you have a gun, you're going to use yours before they use theirs,” Case Western Reserve University Professor Daniel Flannery said.
Professor Flannery is a violence prevention researcher.
“Many people are carrying arms right now that are also more lethal with their ammunition and expanded capacity and the ability to convert handguns into rifle-type semi-automatic weapons,” Flannery said. Cleveland has 105 homicides to date, up from 83 this time last year.
“I think there’s a sense this is part of our daily fabric,” Flannery said.
The most recent shooting death was near Progressive Field. Officers looking into shots fired came across a car on a curb at E. 9th Street and Bolivar Road.
Police say the driver was hit by bullets from another car driving by. A separate shooting wounded three on the East Bank of the Flats outside a bar on Old River Road.
“Anytime there are instances like these, it’s alarming, and anytime there’s gun violence, anytime there are people shot, in this case, killed, it’s very, very serious,” President and CEO at Downtown Cleveland, Michael Deemer, said.
The Third District, which includes downtown, has seen a 75% increase in homicides with guns from the same time last year.
In 2022, there were eight homicides compared to 14 this year.
The number of felonious assaults with guns hasn’t changed, with 139 in both years.
Deemer says business owners and people who live there are understandably concerned.
“What I hear from most of them about what they want is to make sure that our first responders and public safety officials are responding quickly and that we’ve got all the safety measures in place in terms of law enforcement visibility,” Deemer said.
They have ambassadors, cameras, and lighting but say police visibility is extremely important right now and has seen an increase.
Officers were close when a suspect allegedly opened fire into a crowd wounding nine two weeks ago.
“There are communities trying to utilize a combination of technology as well as person power, a community-based approach and community input for what should be done in these spaces,” Flannery said.
But Professor Flannery says there’s no single simplistic answer.
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