Cleveland records 119th homicide

A 17-year-old youth found shot to death today outside his home on East 152nd Street became Cleveland's 119th homicide of the year, matching last year's total.

With nearly two months left in the year, Cleveland is on pace to record the most homicides in the city since the mid-1990s and continues a spike upward that started in 2005.

The latest homicide typifies many of the killings this year, in which teenagers have been either the killers or the victims. Brandon Griffin's body was found dead in the shrubbery in front of the home where he lived with a relative. Police believe he was shot the night before after an altercation.

The relative did not see the body in the darkness Wednesday night and the shrubbery hid the body most of Thursday.

Cleveland Police spokesman Thomas Stacho said he could not point to a specific reason for the rise in murders.

"There's clearly too many guns on the street," Stacho said. "And too many are too quick to go to guns to settle a dispute."

But Stacho also said that violent crime overall - crimes including murders, rape, assaults and some robberies - have dropped 15 percent from last year.

Brandon was just the latest victim of a violent year that brought several high profile killings including 12-year-old Asteve "Cookie" Thomas who was hit by a stray bullet from a shootout Sept. 1 as she walked from a trip to the candy store; a triple murder by a Cleveland firefighter who flew into a rage over July 4 fireworks; and a Cleveland man accused of killing a teen he says tried to rob him..."

See what we been saying all along? Even self-defense shootings...BY CIVILIANS ONLY, of course...are lumped together with homicides. Technically of course killing someone is a homicide, but when a cop does it it doesn't make the list.

And this sure seems like a bad time to call a halt to executions, doesn't it?

There are 187 inmates on Death Row in Ohio. Currently there are 185 men (97 Black, 80 White, 4 Hispanic, and 4 other) and 2 white females on Death Row. (To date, Ohio has executed a total of 369 convicted murderers.)

Ohio has the following racial breakdown:

85 percent white, 11.5 percent black, 1.9 percent Hispanic, 1.2 percent Asian.

11.5% of the population accounting for 52% of the murders.

So of course they blame the guns.