Toledo homicide rate drops 60% in four years. Mayor explains strategies

TOLEDO, Ohio — For many in the Glass City, it still feels like yesterday when week after week, reports kept coming in of homicides.

The record-breaking peak came in 2021, with 71 total homicides.

By April of that year, 20 people were already gone. But fast forward four years to April of this year. and that number has been cut by 60%, with only eight homicides so far this year.

So, what did it take? Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said it took attacking the problem from every angle.

“I think the reason we’ve been so successful is because we didn’t do one thing, we’ve done a number of things,” Kapszukiewicz said.

The mayor listed four factors for the city’s success, and he says perhaps the biggest was increasing the size of the police force from 585 officers at the start of his first term to 635 officers now.

“You do need more officers if you want to have the kind of community policing we know works. If you want officers to get out of the squad car, get around and develop relationships in neighborhoods. like this with business owners, kids, whatever the case may be, and we did the hard work to grow the size of the police force,” Kapszukiewicz said.

He said the second factor is youth programming.

A large portion of the city’s homicide victims to this day are 18 or younger, which is why, for the last three years, the city has invested $2 million into free summer programming for kids to keep them busy and away from trouble.

“We invested the resources to make sure kids have positive things to do in the summer, and they were free. There were over 100 free programs we’ve offered to kids, and I think that has made a difference,” Kapszukiewicz said.

Thirdly, the mayor said there has been an effort to change the physical conditions of the city, targeting blight and demolishing vacant homes.

“There is a connection between a blighted neighborhood and crime, so I think those efforts have helped,” said the mayor.

And finally, the mayor had to give credit to his team at the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, which actually goes directly into the community.

“Their job is to go out at the grassroots level, build relationships with young people and try to prevent arguments from turning into something tragic. That program has actually expanded and now they’re actually in schools now,” Kapszukiewicz said.

The mayor said community members willing to roll up their sleeves and be the change they want to see all adds up to a much safer Toledo than just a few years ago.

“Toledo has faced adversity over the years, but we always pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and fight back,” the mayor said.

And next week city council will unveil its plan to combat violence for the next four years, including reducing gun violence by another 20%, increasing the median household income in core neighborhoods and changing people’s attitudes towards interpersonal violence.