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Published: 1/2/2012 - Updated: 4 months ago

Jump in Toledo homicides worries law authorities

Drugs, gangs suspected in gun-violence rise

BY TAYLOR DUNGJEN
BLADE STAFF WRITER

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The blood that stained a porch on Delaware Avenue is gone; the fingerprints from Jeffrey Poindexter’s hand sliding across his mother’s front door have been wiped away.

All that’s left of an alleyway memorial for Marquan McCuinare white matted ribbon and popped red balloons.

Memories of the two young men, gunned down in separate incidents, are the only reminders.

In all, police responded to 36 homicides in 2011 — including a family of four who died in March of carbon monoxide poisoning. There also were two police-involved fatal shootings.

Despite what seemed like never-ending gun violence, the city was nowhere near its 1980 record of 60 slayings.

Toledo had 24 homicides in 2010 and 33 in 2009.

RELATED CONTENT: Blade Homicide Report

The increase in homicides is troubling to authorities. Sgt. Phil Toney said the rise possibly could be attributed to an apparent increase in gun violence, although authorities continually have said the killings are very rarely random and that victims and suspects are, often, linked in some way.

Some killings were linked to drug activity and some to gang violence, although it’s hard to say if a victim or suspect’s gang affiliation is a direct link to the crime.

Of last year’s homicides, 11 remain unsolved, which is in line with previous years, Sergeant Toney said. “We’d like it if there’d be no unsolved homicides,” he said. “Just because they’re unsolved now doesn’t mean they’ll remain that way.”

Sergeant Toney said that, in many cases, detectives “have good leads, it’s just a matter of getting through the whole investigation. “In a homicide, you don’t arrest someone until you’re sure,” he added.

On Jan. 11, the city recorded its first homicide: Allam Ibrahim, 48, was found dead inside his home in the 2900 block of Jermain Drive. It wasn’t until March that the Lucas County Coroner’s Office ruled the death — a beating — a homicide.

Mr. Ibrahim’s death is unsolved — and it’s the case investigators have the least to go on, Sergeant Toney said. Attempts to locate Mr. Ibrahim’s family for comment were unsuccessful.

At the scene of another unsolved murder, most of the windows and doors are boarded up at the Sanford Avenue residence where a young couple were gunned down.

“Sometimes I believe [their] souls [are] still in there, the way they boarded it up so fast,” said Dorothy White, who lives a few houses away.

A photo of the victims, Andrew Baker and Tanja Cathey, both 28, is taped to the front door.

Ms. White wants people to remember, and she wants anyone who knows something — anything — about the brutal deaths to come forward. “It’s too sad for no one to not know what happened,” Ms. White said, looking at the small memorial she placed on the front steps.

Sometimes, walking down the street, Ms. White can hear Baker’s laughter. “But I can’t bring him back,” she said. “It’s like the Lord said, be patient. It will all fall into hand.”

Attempts to reach Ms. Cathey’s and Baker’s families were unsuccessful, but Ms. White said the couple’s 2-year-old son, inside the home at the time of the murders and found clinging to his mother’s body, is doing fine.

Survivors carry on

For the families who have some answers and some sort of resolution, the misery is often overwhelming, but they carry on.

“We were raised that only the strong survive,” said Karen Harris, whose father became the city’s eighth homicide victim April 17. He was the oldest person slain in Toledo last year.

Charles Harris, Jr., 71, was shot and killed by Kenneth Anderson, 29, in an alley behind Nebraska Avenue.

Mr. Harris, known to many as “Chuck-A-Luck,” was unloading his truck after a day of tending lawns when Anderson and another man, who police say was Thomas Johnson, 22, robbed Mr. Harris.

Mr. Harris fought back and was shot by Anderson.

Anderson, who pleaded guilty to the shooting, is serving a 20-year sentence for his role. Johnson is scheduled for a Jan. 9 trial.

During Anderson’s trial, Ms. Harris said she forgave the man who killed her father.

“It’s not that I’m not hurt,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “It’s a sick feeling to say, ‘I forgive you.’?”

Police go on high alert

On Nov. 25, a 14-year-old boy and his mother became the 30th and 31st victims. Timothy Blair and his mother, Veronica Serrano, 34, were shot and killed on the porch of their Page Street home. Timothy, the youngest to be killed, died at the scene; Ms. Serrano died in a hospital.

“We’re still battling with emotions and dealing with them being gone,” said Henry Serrano, Ms. Serrano’s brother. He said Ms. Serrano’s other children are “doing good.”

Police arrested Daurin Patton, 26, for the deaths and in December he pleaded not guilty to two counts of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated robbery.

Ms. Serrano had moved from the Temperance area to start over, but her family said that, after seeing the violence in her neighborhood, she was ready to leave after two weeks. “It’s not going to change until the neighbors, the store owners, get together and start standing up against these people,” Mr. Serrano said.

Shootings in Toledo, which happened almost daily starting in late spring, put police on high alert. After eight people were shot in four incidents during the last weekend of June, Mike Navarre, then Toledo’s police chief, announced a gun task force, operating on overtime and working aggressively to seize guns.

“It is absolutely necessary to get a handle on what’s happened in the last couple weeks,” Chief Navarre said at the time. “We cannot allow this to continue and we won’t allow this to continue.”

In 2011, as of Dec. 30, 928 guns had been booked into the Toledo Police Department’s property room — 499 since July 1, the task force’s first official day. That’s more than the previous three years and just shy of 2007’s 955 seized firearms.

No longer feeling safe

Sergeant Toney said it seemed as if more shootings occurred last summer than previously. “It seemed it was a little easier to let bullets fly,” the sergeant said, adding that many of the shooters are young. “You wonder what’s so messed up that they come to this at such an early age,” he said.

Since The Blade started tracking shootings June 1, 145 people have been shot.

For investigators who constantly respond to scenes where someone has been killed or severely wounded — Sergeant Toney responded to 17 homicides last year — the work is difficult. “It takes work [to not become jaded],” the sergeant said. “You have to work at what you do, and remind yourself that, no matter what I do, there’s going to be another.

“I have to remember I can make a difference if I can put someone in jail that killed someone or robbed someone. … You just have to know you’re making some difference. There are days you don’t feel like you are, but every little bit helps.”

In some neighborhoods, gun shots became typical nighttime noise. Still, news of gun violence rattled residents; lifelong city residents say the violence never has been this bad.

Mark Simmons, a 20-year-old from north Toledo, said he’s watched his neighborhood change from bad to worse. “It’s not safe to walk at night,” he said.

Mr. Simmons, who writes and records original rap songs under the name T-Simms, wrote a song, “Truce,” about ending the city’s violence that includes these lyrics:

“This city ain’t like how it used to be no more. I lost some friends but I gained a couple more. Toledo, please tell me what we gonna do. I’m sayin’ we all hood. Call a truce on every side of town.”

Contact Taylor Dungjen at: tdungjen@theblade.com or 419-724-6054.

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