'It's just out of control.' Summit County data paints grim picture of growing gun violence

The sheer number and frequency of gun homicides in Summit County has doubled in the past decade — a trend more alarming than what epidemiologists see nationally and one that's worsened since the pandemic, especially among youths.

To build a comprehensive picture of how gun violence is playing out in our community, the Beacon Journal combined hospital and death data accessed by Summit County Public Health, the time and location of 11,008 shots-fired reports catalogued by the Akron Police Department and details from 421 Summit County death certificates for fatal gunshot wound victims since 2019.

Among the conclusions:

• Gun deaths now dominate overall homicides like nothing the county has seen before.

• Fatal shootings and reported gunfire are highly concentrated in ZIP codes surrounding downtown Akron.

• Black, male victims fill morgues at a rate five times their share of the general population.

• Victims of gun violence are growing markedly younger as residents express fears of children running wild and youths who settle their scores with readily available firearms.

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"It's just out of control every day now," said a resident of Akron's Sherbondy Hill, the epicenter of gun violence in Summit County. "Women getting shot in the back. Kids getting shot. Kids at home shooting themselves. Guns that aren't locked up. It's insane."

Here's what the data shows about the state of gun violence in our community.

Guns dominate fatal assaults in Summit County

From 2007 through 2016, Summit County averaged less than 20 gun homicides a year. Since 2017, the county has averaged 39 annually, with peaks of 50 in 2020 and 51 in 2022, and 36 through the second week of September this year.

Fatal shootings, which accounted for 42% of fatal assaults in 2007 and about 90% in the last three years, are driving the sharp uptick in overall homicides since 2014.

Black men are 19 times more likely to die of gun homicide

There are glaring and persistent racial disparities in the gun death data.

Black males are 14% of the population of Akron and 75% of its gun homicide victims. Suicides roughly mirror countywide racial demographics. But Black men in Summit County die of gun homicide 19 times as often as white men. Black females die at a rate two times higher than white females.

Summit County Public Health found that from 2007 to 2021, Black residents accounted for 74% of the county's fatal gunshot wound victims. The Beacon Journal's analysis of more current data from 2019 through August 2023 shows that the portion of gun homicide victims who are Black has remained consistent at 76%.

Black people are also more likely to die in nonresidential shootings. A Summit County Public Health analysis of 536 death certificates with descriptions on the exact location of a fatal firearm assault showed that Black victims were 44% of shootings on residential property and 56% of shootings elsewhere — parking lots, streets, sidewalks, vacant lots, gas stations and vehicles in roads.

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Akron averages 7 reports of shots fired each day

Akron police and 911 dispatchers generated 11,008 unique reports of gunfire from January 2019 through May 2023. Not all reports led investigators to verifiable evidence like spent shell casings, fresh bullet holes or one of the 684 shooting victims in Akron since 2020, of which about one in five did not survive.

Akron is averaging seven reports of shots fired each day. Some residents said they've stopped calling 911. Only 13 of the 1,611 days covered in this analysis had zero reported shots fired. Another 13 days had 20 or more reports. And the trend line — which rises and falls with the temperature in a phenomenon observed nationally — spiked when the governor shut down schools and businesses at the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

Death certificates point to Akron for gun violence victims

Akron is home to 35% of Summit County residents and 91% of gun homicides since 2019.

The Beacon Journal examined 421 Summit County death certificates for homicides involving gunshots. The records from the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office cover everyone who died here, including people fatally shot as far away as Wooster, Ashland and Medina who were taken to a hospital in Akron.

Of the 421 gun-related deaths since 2019, the cause was undetermined in four cases and ruled accidental in one. (The self-inflicted shooting death of a 4-year-old who police say found an unsecured handgun in an East Akron apartment had not yet been ruled accidental by the time data was requested for this analysis.)

The remaining 416 gun deaths include 207 suicides and 209 homicides. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 54% of gun deaths nationally are suicides, meaning Summit County, like other urban counties, has an disproportionate gun homicide problem.

The per capita rate at which Americans are killing each other with guns today is below its peak during the 1990s. But the homicide rate in Summit County, which is driven by murders in Akron, peaked in 2020 and has not come down since. At its worst in 1991, gun homicides claimed 18 of every 100,000 Akron residents compared to 24 last year.

The Summit County medical examiner gets a gun homicide and a gun suicide victim once every four days, on average, although the bodies arrive more frequently when the shooting spikes at night or on weekends. Reports of gunfire peak in May.

Looking closer at Akron's gun violence, homicide problem

Summit County Public Health, in an effort led by Chief Epidemiologist Rich Marountas, released a second data brief in August on assault-related deaths and emergency room visits.

Maps crafted from the data reinforce the strong correlation between gun violence and communities with high infant mortality, fewer local job opportunities, lower rates of health insurance or high school diplomas and higher rates of divorce, unemployment, single parenthood, cash-strapped renters and other destabilizing characteristics.

Assault Data Brief August 2023 by Doug on Scribd

The Summit County Public Health analysis, which was limited to death certificates for only Summit County residents, and the Beacon Journal's review of the medical examiner records, which are more current and include everyone shot dead in Summit County regardless of where they lived, arrive at the same conclusion that national researchers have found: gun homicides are pronounced in historically disinvested, majority-minority neighborhoods that touch the downtowns of major cities in urban counties.

"It's no accident that where you see the violence happening is where we have more socially vulnerable communities," Marountas said. "So, it's as much a symptom of the other problems that are being faced as everything else. There's a lot of [concerning] economic hardship, housing stock, health — all of these social determinants that make these areas more vulnerable."

Assault Infographic by Doug on Scribd

The census tracts and ZIP codes with the highest rates of reported gunfire and homicides overlap in Wards 3, 4 and 5 — which include more than half the Black residents in all of Akron's 10 wards. Looking at the most current death data from 2019 to 2023, West Akron's 44320 had the most gun homicides at 32, followed by 29 in East Akron's 44306 and 23 in Kenmore's 44314.

But on a per capita basis, the highest gun homicide rate was recorded in the 44307 ZIP code around Lane Field in the Sherbondy Hill neighborhood, what longtime residents call old Lane-Wooster, where 15 fatal firearm assaults led the county at 2.2 deaths per 1,000 residents. Next was neighboring South Akron, where 18 gun homicides in the 44311 ZIP code equated to 2.1 deaths per 1,000 residents. Nine homicides in the 44304 ZIP code, which wraps like a backwards "C" around downtown from the University of Akron to Cascade Park, resulted in Summit County's third-highest gun homicide rate at 1.8 per 1,000 residents.

More children are dying of gun violence in Summit County

Twenty children have died of gunshot wounds in Summit County since 2020, including eight pronounced dead at Akron Children's Hospital. The 20 deceased kids include five deaths ruled suicide and one undetermined. Three suicides, which occurred in Bath, Mineral City and Canton, involved victims brought to Akron for treatment.

Of the 15 children whose deaths were not ruled suicide, all were Black with the exception of a 10-year-old boy who police say was accidentally shot when he and friends came across an unsecured gun in a North Akron home last year. And all the gun homicides for children occurred in Akron, with the exception of a 15-year-old boy transported from Canton to Akron Children's Hospital.

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The staggering death toll — 15 children in less than four years — compares to 17 kids killed in firearm assaults in the previous 13 years.

The alarming local trend mirrors a national uptick in gun violence disproportionately hitting youth since the pandemic.

The firearm mortality rate, which covers homicides and suicides, has more than doubled for children in America since 2013, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. That rate has risen sharply since 2020, the first year that firearms overtook vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death for children.

In the absence of a comprehensive national accounting of gun deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a record 20,958 deadly firearm assaults in 2021, a 23% increase from 2019. That figure dipped to 19,592 in 2022, according to preliminary CDC data released in July. Within that number, though, homicides rose 45% while suicides climbed 10%.

"The overall increase in U.S. gun deaths since the beginning of the pandemic includes an especially stark rise in such fatalities among children and teens under the age of 18," Pew Research Center reported in April. "Gun deaths among children and teens rose 50% in just two years, from 1,732 in 2019 to 2,590 in 2021."

Reach reporter Doug Livingston at dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3792.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Summit County data paints grim picture of growing Akron gun violence