Editor's note: As a public service to the community, The Dispatch has made this story free to all readers. The Dispatch will host a community conversation on teens and gun violence from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Oct. 18 Downtown at the main branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.
He’s alive right now, but y'all gotta get here.
Somebody just shot me!
Can we come and a have a moment with our son? I am calling because our (son's body) is there. ... I’d like to come see my boy.
These are just a few of the cries for help left in the aftermath of gun violence in Columbus.
From midnight on Thursday, July 20 to 8 a.m. on Sunday July 23, The Dispatch deployed 28 journalists to capture gun violence in real time for 80 consecutive hours.
In this summer weekend, the police will crisscross the city and county chasing hundreds of reports of guns being toted and shots fired. They will confiscate 50 firearms. And bullets will strike 10 people.
The victims will include a 13-year-old boy, a 7-year-old girl who enters the hospital bleeding from her leg, a woman shot in a grocery store parking lot, a man hit inside his duplex during a drive-by shooting and a 20-year-old running an errand for his mom.
Yet it will be considered a typical, if not slow, weekend of gun violence in Columbus. This violence has become a tragic but all-too-ordinary way of life with bullets piercing the community's peace of mind and safety, week after week, month after month, year after year.
This snapshot shows that the effects of gun violence spans far wider than the yellow tape that blocks off countless crime scenes. It stretches into neighborhoods where parents are apprehensive and afraid to let their children play outside. To funeral homes and vigils where families and friends honor those senselessly and suddenly lost. To the courts where an assembly line of people get arraigned on new gun charges and others are convicted on existing charges. To local parks where adults try to keep the young from joining the gun culture that has left far too many dead, wounded or without parents to raise them.
Every day, our city is forced to live with the aftermath of the bullets that have been fired, and, as the clock ticks on, the fear that more are coming.
Day One: Thursday, July 20, 2023
3:39 a.m. — A young store clerk peers through the drive-thru window when a man in a black ski mask thrusts a gun in his face and hurdles into the United Food Mart convenience store on the South Side.
The clerk jerks backwards and runs around the corner, trapped behind the narrow front counter when the robber charges at him. The shaking clerk throws up his hands as a shield and is pushed toward three cash registers.
The robber points the gun directly into the clerk’s eyes while he grabs bills from each tray. Then he orders the clerk to crouch down on the floor while he cleans out the last register.
The clerk remains in a prayer position while the man stuffs the money and some tobacco wraps into plastic shopping bag. The clerk rises to his feet, again staring directly into the chamber.
Two minutes and 13 seconds after the man jumped through the window, he lunges back through it and disappears into the darkness. The 911 call isn’t placed for about an hour after the robbery. Four police cruisers respond to the scene and store owner, Om Gupta, sips a cup of coffee and lights up a cigarette as the police scour the area for the suspect.
“We did not find him,” one of the officers tells Gupta.
The yellow crime scene tape is pulled down, and the officers drive off.
This is the first time Gupta’s store has been hit, but he walks back inside wondering if there will be more.
Police will not find the man in the ski mask this day.
"It was very scary," Gupta says.
4 a.m. — One woman is kicked and beaten by a group in a parking lot while her friend is grabbed by the neck and has a gun shoved in her face. The victims later tell police they were attacked after a group of people accused one of them of damaging their car in the Eastmoor neighborhood. This is what police call a 10-33 report or “person with a gun.” These reports are constant, especially at night. Sometimes, police find a person with a gun; other times, they don't. Either way, they have to zigzag around the city responding to these calls.
4:27 a.m. — Three gunshots are fired on the South Side. Every day and night, officers are alerted to gunshots in real time by technology called ShotSpotter, which is used in five city neighborhoods: the Hilltop, Linden, Near East Side, portion of the South Side and the Wedgewood Village Apartment complex on the West Side.
4:33 a.m. — Four shots fired in the Hilltop.
5:31 a.m. — Shot fired on the Near East Side.
5:38 a.m. — 911 callers say they hear gunshots in their East Side neighborhood. The dispatcher forwards the information to the patrol officer. The message appears on the police car’s monitor.
HEARD 2 AND SAW 2 FLASHES… HEARD 3 DIDN’T SEE OR HEAR ANYTHING ELSE … CORRECTION, HEARD 4 AND SAW FLASHES.
These types of reports — ones the officers call “43A — shots fired” are consistent throughout the night. They are on most nights, especially during weekends, police say. Officers must chase each one. Some turn up clear evidence. Many turn out to be nothing; they find no shell casings or bullet holes or any evidence someone fired a gun. Sometimes they find a knife or drugs instead. Regardless, they have to chase and chase and chase.
6:12 a.m. — Two shots fired in the Hilltop.
8:27 a.m. — “Can we come and a have a moment with our son?" asks the grieving mother. “I am calling because our son is there. I don’t know. I don’t know. We just want to have a moment with him. I’d like to come see my boy.”
The woman’s son had shot himself in his Dublin home two days earlier.
The parents, who live out of state, call the coroner’s office because that’s where their son’s body had been taken. They also want to help their daughter-in-law and find out what comes next.
In a soft, soothing tone, suicide specialist Dallas Allen tells the parents that the coroner’s office doesn’t allow families to see their loved ones. They will have to wait to see their son at a funeral home.
“We just want to have a moment with our son,” the mother says again.
After telling the parents all that he can the conversation ends, but the mother calls again.
This time, she asks if she and her husband can get copies of the pictures from the suicide scene.
In this moment, Allen becomes more of a counselor than a coroner’s investigator. He explains they can request them but gently implores the parents against it.
“As someone who works with these circ*mstances all the time, this is difficult to see,” Allen says. “The loving son you remember is not the person in those pictures.”
9:44 a.m. — Eujene Burley sits in Franklin County Common Pleas courtroom 3F, unfolding a letter on the table in front of him while his mother behind him wipes away tears.
Nearly two years ago, Burley was high on marijuana and messing around with his mom’s loaded 9mm handgun when he accidentally shot his 14-year-old friend Daymar Carlisle in the head.
He previously pled guilty to reckless homicide and other criminal charges. This morning, he is waiting to be sentenced.
The now 19-year-old reads a letter he wrote to his dead friend before the judge decides how many years he will spend in prison.
Bowing his head to read the letter, his dreadlocks covering his face, he mumbles the words.
“Dear Daymar, I know you can’t hear me right now …”
“We was always together …”
“I could always count on you to keep me …”
“We had so much fun …”
“I miss you so much …”
“Some days I feel like giving up …”
“I can’t seem to forgive myself ...”
The judge tells Burley his apology is nice and heartfelt, but it can’t bring Daymar back to life.
He sentences Burley to seven years in prison.
Burley sits in silence, wiping away the tears dripping down his cheeks.
10:03 a.m. — One by one, the handcuffed inmates, clad in beige jumpsuits, rise from a waiting room bench in Franklin County jail and stand on the red X.
They can be seen via monitor by the judge and others inside courtroom 4D.
Raymond Hughes, 46, is arraigned on four criminal charges, the most serious being a felony for inducing panic. The Grove City man allegedly bragged to police that he could get any gun or weapon he wanted, and his threats caused a local school, day care and church to go on lockdown. In his mental health assessment, Hughes allegedly said that he could see who is evil and who is not and that there would be a bloodbath.
Hughes starts grumbling after the judge sets his bond at $750,000 and orders him to stay away from the school, day care and church.
“Lies, lies, lies,” Hughes says shortly before walking out of view of the courtroom monitor. “Weapons of mass destruction? I ain’t never say no (expletive) like that.”
The next man to walk to the red X is charged with raping a minor and threatening her with a gun if she told anyone.
In another case, a man is accused of firing shots at police and others outside a local nightclub. In another, a man is charged with having a loaded pistol after telling police he didn’t have a gun. In another, a man is charged with shooting at two women in a car. And in another, a man is charged with threatening to shoot a woman and her baby during a domestic violence incident.
This is a typical morning in courtroom 4D. Scenes like this repeat every day of the week except on Sundays.
11:38 a.m. — Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor David Zeyen raises an AR-15 rifle in the air just a few feet from the jury who will determine Elias Smith’s fate.
Smith, a former Marine, sits in courtroom 3E as his murder trial enters day four in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
Zeyen wants to make sure the jury gets a good look at the gun. Smith built the gun on his own, buying parts for it online. He even dressed it up with a Star Wars sticker.
Prosecutors say on Father’s Day 2021, Smith fatally shot 43-year-old Jason Keys seven times with the AR-15. They say he opened fire from his front porch on the Far East Side after seeing a conflict in the street without knowing what was happening. Smith’s attorneys say the 26-year-old was just trying to protect neighbors.
As the prosecutor raises the gun that took her husband away, Keys’ wife sits in the gallery and cries.
3:34 p.m. — It’s 92 degrees, and sweat is already beading on Dontá Greene’s forehead before his fist thumps the first door on 25th Avenue in North Linden.
His presence here, along with three other Columbus Public Health employees on the Linden Anti-Violence Team, is no accident. Two weeks earlier, and a block away, 64-year-old Flo Wilkes was found dead at her home from multiple gunshot wounds, one of three reported within a 30-minute span in the city.
With a stack of flyers in his hand advertising an anti-violence listening session the next week, Greene makes his way down 25th Avenue, one house after the next. He knocks at the door of a blue house with a small front porch, and a woman who answers the door hardly pauses her ongoing phone conversation as Greene asks if he could leave the flyer and explains how to sign up to attend the anti-violence event.
“I’m tired of all my friends getting killed,” the woman says, nodding as she takes the flyer.
Another 20 minutes later, Greene is nearing the end of the street, when a neighbor waves Greene and his fellow canvassers over.
“I told you I was coming back!” Greene says to the man. He’d spoken to the resident a couple of weeks earlier after Wilkes was shot and killed a block away.
“The messed-up thing is that while we are talking, like within an hour of that, somebody got popped on McGuffey,” the man says to the group. “You remember that? While he was knocking, talking about stopping the violence, that day was the day he got shot on McGuffey.”
5:07 p.m. — The ringing melody blaring from the ice cream truck echoes around the West Side’s Wedgewood Village Apartments. The truck slowly circles the red brick buildings that have been riddled with bullets in recent years. Patches of mortar cover some of the bricks where bullets pierced through the walls. In one building, there is a line of 10 patched bricks where bullets were sprayed. Since 2020, there have been 13 homicides at Wedgewood. Police records show the oldest victim was 38, the youngest 13.
“Around here you need a gun,” said Leo, a 21-year-old Wedgewood resident who was afraid to share his last name for fear of retaliation. “These houses got shot up so many times people done forgot.”
Two moms and their children walk away from the ice cream truck happy customers, seemingly oblivious to a nearby memorial wrapped around a light pole honoring one of the most recent shooting victims — a 13-year-old boy.
5:57 p.m. — A little boy is eating McDonald’s french fries when he hears coaches yell that it’s time to run the warm-up lap.
With one fry still hanging from his lips, the 7-year-old pulls up his baggy football pants, shoves his helmet out of his eyes and joins the dozens of other boys shuffling around the fields in stifling 90-degree heat.
The sound of oversized shoulder pads flapping up and down echos around Helsel Park on the city’s Southeast Side.
When the warm-up is complete, one group of the boys circles around 6-foot-4-inch tall, 315-pound Coach Rashawn Parnell.
The top of their heads end near their coach’s waist.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” the coach exclaims to the 7- and 8-year-olds. “I know it’s hot out here. No excuses. Offense here, defense here. Let’s do things the right way.”
Parnell, 30, and his team are a part of the Groveport-based nonprofit organization called Columbus ICE, which is short for Inspiring Children to Excellence, a reference to its work in youth sports, the classroom, and beyond.
The program, started in 2011, uses football, basketball and cheerleading programs to inspire about 300 children between the ages of 4 and 14.
ICE hadn’t gotten much media attention until one of its 14-year-old football players was shot and killed by a 13-year-old in 2019.
Parnell and the other adult volunteers are here to stop that from happening to another of their kids. The ICE founders say many of the children come from homes where someone has been lost to gun violence.
In fact, two players on Parnell’s current team have lost fathers from it.
6:01 p.m. — A woman on Harris Avenue in the Hilltop is helping her elderly neighbor haul in her trash cans when suddenly she sees police officers running, hears a gunshot and sees someone jumping over her fence.
She screams and runs into her neighbor’s garage.
This is far from the first time gunfire has echoed in her community.
“I’ve heard many (gunshots) in this neighborhood. Quite a bit,” the woman said. “I’ve lived here over 30 years.”
This time, it had been a police officer’s gun that sounded. Columbus police would later confirm that officers were attempting to stop a stolen vehicle in the area when a man exited the driver’s seat and ran. As police chased after him and attempted to take him into custody, one of the officers accidentally discharged a gun. No one was struck.
6:47 p.m. — The police SWAT truck, complete with an awning, is parked next to the basketball court with a handful of officers standing underneath.
Chaos surrounds the officers.
And they love it.
“TNT Thursdays,” screams the DJ under a white tent. “Stop the violence!”
Teens, toddlers, adults in dress shirts, and officers all roam in harmony at John Etna Park in Whitehall at the Thursday Night Thrillers (TNT) Youth Basketball League. The idea for the pickup basketball games came from local basketball coaches and is embraced by Whitehall city leaders and police.
Too many local kids have been thrown into the gun culture that is prevalent on their streets.
The games have turned into a weekly community festival that rallies against the violence.
The smell of food truck goodies hangs in the air, and little kids stream in and out to jump in a bounce house that is in constant motion.
“Stop the violence right here,” the DJ yells again over the blaring hip-hop music as a player from Columbus South High School scores a basket.
This round of games end, and players converge on half court to hug and high-five as the next two teams start to get warmed up. Members of the South High team neatly stack their jerseys on the asphalt, one by one.
There hasn’t been a punch thrown all summer at these games. Not even an argument that police have had to break up, let alone any trouble with guns.
The lights come on over the courts as the sky darkens with storm clouds in the distance, prompting another outburst by the DJ.
“The lights are on, TNT!” he says. “Stop the violence!”
7:56 p.m. — Columbus police Officer Joel Dobney is walking through an alley in a Hilltop neighborhood that reeks of rotting trash. He is searching for evidence that gunshots were fired in the area, but all he finds are a couple of boys throwing a football in the street.
Then another call from the dispatcher comes in saying there is a drunk man wielding a gun not far away on the West Side.
Dobney, about 6-foot-1 with a lean build, sprints back to the cruiser.
He arrives on the scene and is confronted by a shirtless, hysterical man who says he is the victim. The man tells the six-year veteran of the force that a drunk guy pointed a gun at him and then hid the gun behind his home in the alley.
The officer begins searching beneath trash cans for the gun, but he can’t find it.
The shirtless man is thankful the 38-year-old officer took his report seriously.
“This is the first time in a long time I’ve been around the police and haven’t been scared,” the man says.
About 20 minutes later, Dobney is called to a house in Franklinton that is being raided by the SWAT team on drug-related warrants. Inside the house, officers find drugs and 15 guns.
“We’re gonna make sure our i’s are dotted and our t’s are crossed,” Dobney says. “So we don’t lose this and put these guys back in the community.”
About an hour later, Dobney is in his cruiser frustrated with the onslaught of gun calls he faces shift after shift.
“I think the world would’ve been better,” Dobney says, “if guns were never invented.”
8:30 p.m. — Dark, ominous clouds drift into Franklin County from the west and take over what was a bright, hazy sky for most of the evening. The whipping winds blow the rain sideways in the Downtown area as chunks of hail fall in other areas of the city.
The threatening storm is a blessing for police, who know bad weather usually slows down crime.
11:29 p.m. — Five shots fired on the Near East Side.
Day Two: Friday, July 21, 2023
12:20 a.m. — A piece of a man's skull is exposed just above the eyes when the bloody shirt wrapped around his head is removed.
Police find the dazed man lying beneath a tree at Wedgewood Village Apartments on the West Side. He tells the officers he was jumped by two men who demanded money and flashed their guns.
He told the suspects he had no money to give them and was then beaten in the head with a pistol.
He laid there for a little while until a passerby found him and contacted police.
An ambulance takes the man to OhioHealth Doctors Hospital for his injuries.
A red patch of blood stains the sidewalk just five yards away from a memorial for Sinzae Reed, a Black 13-year-old who was shot and killed here in October 2022. The controversial, racially charged case received national attention for months. Ultimately, a white man who claimed he shot Reed out of self-defense was not indicted for the teen’s death.
On the memorial block of wood, “Sinzae” is spelled out vertically going downward in colorful letters, with the number “13” at the bottom. Red flowers surround the block of wood nine months after Sinzae was killed.
1:43 a.m. — HEARD 4 GUNSHOTS AND SEEN A LOT OF PPL ON THE PORCH
It's another report of shots fired that flashed to patrol officers on their screen. This one is on the Northeast Side but doesn't lead anywhere.
3:54 a.m. — ShotSpotter, the technology used by police to detect gun shots, flashes up three yellow dots on officers' screens, showing that three shots have been fired on the Northeast Side.
5:05 a.m. — Shot fired in the Hilltop.
5:06 a.m. — Loud pops cut through the still, dark morning air as a Columbus police SWAT team launches tear gas projectiles into a suspect’s apartment.
The man remains hidden inside and doesn't respond to police commands to come out peacefully.
Police fire two more tear gas projectiles inside.
“Lamar, come to the front door," an officer shouts. "Open the door. Put your hands in the air."
Officers were called here to the University District home just before 4 a.m. on a report of a domestic disturbance and were soon alerted that the suspect had a warrant out for his arrest. He failed to appear in court on multiple criminal charges, including carrying a concealed weapon and improper handling of a firearm.
Two hours into the standoff there is still nothing.
Police fire two more projectiles.
“It doesn’t need to get any worse,” the officer shouts. “We’re not going anywhere. Get some fresh air."
Still silence inside the apartment. Police fire two more and repeat their commands as joggers glide by and neighbors start to wake.
“We’re not going away," an officer shouts. "We don’t want to do any more damage to the neighborhood. This has gone on long enough.”
It goes on for another hour with police firing more and more projectiles into the apartment.
Smoke now seeps out of the apartment and into the dark sky.
Morning light slowly illuminates yellow police tape on the otherwise quiet street as the standoff stretches on for nearly three hours.
Finally, a little after sunrise, the man emerges in handcuffs while dogs bark in the background.
9:08 a.m. — Trevell Adams runs, jumps and zigzags all over the Driving Park Recreation Center on the Near East Side that’s only lit by the morning sunlight pouring in from eight large windows above.
The 22-year-old buries shot after shot over the basketball court until glistening sweat covers his 6-foot frame while he works out with his buddy.
Toward the end of the one-hour workout, Adams springs over the rim and dunks. Then he begins work on his showstopper. Over and over, Adams stands near midcourt, hurls the ball high off the backboard, runs toward the key, catches the ball off the bounce on his way up, and tries to dunk it.
No one would guess Adams is doing all of this with a bullet in his left hip.
The Columbus South High School graduate and current college basketball player at Ashland University was shot in a drive-by shooting in 2016 when he was in eighth grade. He was riding his bike to basketball practice when he saw someone fire a gun out of a swerving vehicle, knocking him to the ground.
On that day, there was real doubt about whether Adams future included sports.
But in some ways, it made him stronger. He became more focused on doing the right things and worked harder than ever in rehab.
Doctors couldn’t remove the bullet inside the muscle, and it remains part of Adams’ daily life.
With that reminder lodged deep inside his hip, Adams knows that not even a bullet can stop him.
9:54 a.m. — Elias Smith shuffles into Common Pleas courtroom 3E in shackles for day five of his murder trial.
Today, he will take the stand.
The former Marine is accused of killing 43-year-old Jason Keys with an AR-15 rifle after witnessing a street scuffle. Prosecutors say he opened fire from his front porch without knowing what was happening. Smith’s attorneys say the 26-year-old was just trying to protect neighbors.
Before Smith begins his testimony, Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Simon Huh steps through the low swinging door to the courtroom gallery and braces Keys’ family for what they will hear.
“It’s going to be hard,” Huh says.
Huh is proven right. It’s a long, painful morning where they must relive the night Keys was gunned down by seven bullets.
At one point in Smith’s testimony, he is asked why he bought and assembled the gun in the first place.
“Because, well, Columbus is getting dangerous,” Smith says. “The world’s a dangerous place. I have a big family. I know there are a lot of firearms in this country, and I know there are a lot of bad people.”
10:59 a.m. — A 911 caller says that there is a man walking down the street in Eastmoor with a gun and extended magazine hanging out of his pocket.
An officer soon locates the man, who refuses to stop and talk. The man then walks into a park where several children are playing. The officer follows behind in his cruiser and then on foot but keeps his distance.
Suddenly, the man cuts through a fence and starts running away with the gun now in his hand. The officer screams at the man to stop and put the gun down, but he keeps running.
Other officers arrive, and the man is soon cornered on a patio between two apartments, where he hides. With guns drawn, the officers order the man to come out. Finally, he complies. Officers find a loaded magazine and later discover the man stole the gun in a burglary.
The man is loaded up and hauled away.
A group of officers hug, get back in their patrol cars and move on to the next call.
12:26 p.m. — This morning’s dream lingers fresh in Daliyah Brown’s mind.
“We was in the court, and he was there,” the 19-year-old woman says.
“I don’t want to be in his presence. I don’t want to be around,” she says, her eyes flooding with tears. “Just the thought of it, it was scary. I woke up, and it was so real.”
She wipes her eyes, looking up toward the ceiling.
The memories from that horrible day last summer are always there under the surface — just like the snakelike scar on her inner arm, beneath the sheer sleeve of her tropical print dress.
On June 15, 2022, a fight broke out in the parking lot at Glenwood Recreation Center. A 15-year-old joined the fray and began firing a gun into a group of people. Brown, an innocent bystander, was struck. Another woman who was hit did not survive.
The 15-year-old suspect, now 16, is awaiting trial on murder, attempted murder, and felonious assault charges in Franklin County Common Pleas Court. He’s been ordered not to have any contact with the incident’s victims.
But a court order can’t stop Brown’s nightmares.
Jasmine Mekelburg knows how hard some days can be for Brown, despite her vibrant smile. The intervention specialist with the Columbus VOICE (Violence Outreach, Intervention, Community Engagement) program meets with Brown regularly for check-ins like today’s.
“It breaks my heart, because I know that she is really sometimes just hanging on by a thread, and she puts that smile on,” Mekelburg said. “But as soon as she starts opening up about it, you can tell there’s still a lot of unresolved trauma and things she’s going to be working through for a really long time.”
Now Brown finds herself hesitant to go out with her friends. Fireworks trigger her fear. She longs to go to amusem*nt parks but worries the rides will exacerbate her injuries.
“I’m trying to get out of my head and make a better situation out of it instead of being scared and living in a dark life, because I am not a dark person,” she says. “I don’t want to be scared. I want to enjoy life.”
12:28 p.m. – A maroon Jeep.
That’s all dispatchers and police know about a vehicle that just unleashed gunshots and chaos into the Havenwood Townhome community on the West Side.
“People had ski masks on. Shots was fired,” a 911 caller shouts to the dispatcher as he explains a man has been struck in the gunfire.
“He’s alive right now, but ya’ll gotta get here,” he says.
A woman has also been hit by the bullets, another 911 caller reports.
A woman in a colorful hijab had slipped away behind her apartment for a cigarette and a few quiet moments away from her family when the gunfire erupted.
“Stray bullet almost hit me,” she says following the chaos. “Every time we turn around, it’s shots.”
The man and woman hit by bullets were taken to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center.
Both would survive.
2 p.m. – A row of flowers, candles, signs, and other tokens of love for Vijayakumar Nair span the length of his storefront.
"In loving memory, wherever a beautiful soul has been there is a trail of beautiful memories," reads one of the signs.
The 55-year-old, who also went by Mike, was killed a week before when a man walked into his East Side store and attempted to rob him at gunpoint. Nair pulled his own gun, and a shoot-out ensued.
On this day, a few miles away, dozens of family members and friends gather at a funeral in Reynoldsburg to honor the beloved owner of Mike’s Carryout.
3:12 p.m. — A red satin ribbon hangs between pergola posts as Madina Ali stands nearby, clasping a pair of scissors. Her black-painted fingernails steer the steel blades, splitting the single ribbon into two pieces flittering to the ground.
Ali covers her face as the crowd claps gently.
She buries her head in one of her son’s chest as tears flow for another of her sons Issa Jeylani — the son who shined on the soccer field and was lost to bullets at age 15.
Issa was the middle of eight children. It was on this weekend a year ago that Issa was shot and killed in Franklin Township as he was playing soccer with his friends.
Today, his family, soccer teammates, and others gather at the MY Project USA Hilltop Youth Empowerment Center in the Hilltop to dedicate “Issa’s Peace Patio,” which honors the late teen and offers a safe space for young people in the neighborhood.
The center’s founder, Zerqa Abid, embraces Ali pointing to the vibrant mural painted on the white brick building in Issa’s memory.
“He’s smiling,” she says, hugging his mourning mother. “He has a bigger place than this in heaven."
The soft whir of passing cars blends into the background as Abid and others share memories of Issa. When ambulance sirens howl nearby, Abid prays for peace in the neighborhood.
“We are tired of hearing this siren,” she says.
4:16 p.m. — A store owner tells police that a mentally unstable man is threatening him with a gun and refusing to leave his business. When police arrive, the suspect tells police to just shoot him, according to a person with a gun report. The man is taken to a local hospital for psychiatric help.
5:42 p.m. — Three shots fired in Driving Park.
6:10 p.m. — Two shots fired in the Hilltop.
6:13 p.m. — “Somebody’s been shot on Marcia Drive, and the boy is down on the ground.”
The 911 caller is the 13-year-old victim’s next-door neighbor — a woman on her porch on the Northeast Side. The boy has been shot in the stomach, she tells dispatchers.
In the background, the boy is heard saying he was in the house by himself when he was injured.
The boy is taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Police later discover that the boy unintentionally shot himself while playing with a gun inside his house.
The gun was found under his mattress.
6:21 p.m. — "Get out, get out, get out of the car," a robber screams to a man in a car.
He reaches inside the window and grabs the driver’s shirt, attempting to steal the Dodge Charger.
The driver starts to pull away, hoping to escape before anyone gets hurt. But the robber hits him in the chest with his fist, grabs him, and won’t let go, even as the car starts moving down the Hilltop street.
Fearing for his life, the driver reaches for his gun and points it at the robber.
“Go ahead,” the robber says. “I’m not afraid of your gun.”
The driver shoots the robber twice.
“Why you shoot me?” the robber asks.
The driver calls police and tells the dispatcher he shot a man trying to steal his car.
Officers arrive on the scene, save the robber’s life and arrest him at the same time.
6:21 p.m.— Two shots fired in the Hilltop.
6:45 p.m. — Two men tell police that a man fired a shot at them after they saw the suspect looking inside a car on the Northeast Side. Police recover one shell casing.
7:18 p.m. — Columbus police Officer Kevin Kelley opens the ShotSpotter app and the screen on the dashboard computer in his police cruiser lights up like a Christmas tree. Dozens of yellow pins are spread around the five neighborhoods where technology tells Columbus police where and when shots have been fired.
In the past 30 days, 154 yellow pins have popped up on the officer’s screen.
“The criminal element is wise to ShotSpotter and has been for a while,” says Kelley, who has been patrolling the Linden and Northeast Side neighborhoods for 11 years. “So, they don’t stick around much after the shots are fired.”
Shortly into his 10-hour shift, the father of four drives slowly through a South Linden housing community that’s kept him busy with shooting reports in the past. He drives with his windows open, always listening for the sound of gunshots.
Teenage boys throw a basketball across the street to one another and launch the ball straight over Kelley’s cruiser.
“You get extra points for going over a car with a basketball,” he says, regarding the rules of the teenagers’ ball game. “I think you get extra-extra points if it’s a cop car.”
A little while later, a man with a rumbling baritone voice returns on Kelley’s radio: “10-33, Black male, red shirt and black shorts, running across the street firing his gun.”
Kelley races to the scene, screeches his cruiser to a halt, and sees a man who fits the description of the suspect. He raises a gun at the man, and along with another officer order him away from his vehicle. They place him in handcuffs while they do a search.
The man has a look of disdain on his face but stays calm with the officers.
Minutes later, they take the cuffs off and let him go.
The man drives away as if nothing had happened.
“Not our guy,” Kelley says.
A few minutes later, Kelley finds the right guy.
He pulls into a Sheetz gas station, where a man who fits the original description was already detained by police for firing seven shots at a vehicle.
The suspect was inside the gas station buying food when he saw someone driving off with his truck. It was a man repossessing his truck.
The repo man says this is nothing new to him. He’s been shot at seven or eight times over the years and is used to the sound of gunshots.
“Of course, this is the one night I forget my (bullet-proof) vest,” he says while laughing.
Kelley is still only 2½ hours into what’s shaping up to be another long night.
7:35 p.m. — A man and a woman at a house on the Far South Side tell police that their intoxicated neighbor started a fight and then pointed a gun at them while saying, “Come get some.”
9:33 p.m. — A man tells police that two men threatened him with guns during an altercation in the street in Franklinton.
9:49 p.m. — Six shots fired in South Linden.
10:13 p.m. — Shot fired in the Hilltop.
11:26 p.m. — Eight shots fired in the Hilltop.
Day Three: Saturday, July 22, 2023
12:20 a.m. — The smell of burning rubber hangs thick in the night air as five Columbus police officers search a silver Dodge Charger at a West Side Shell gas station.
The 18-year-old driver had joined others earlier in a nearby Kroger parking lot, making TikTok videos as they spun out their tires and whipped around the lot doing doughnuts. He ran a red light as he was leaving, and police chased after him.
As police search the Charger, they find a bag. In the bag is a 9mm handgun loaded with an extended round magazine — which is illegal for the 18-year-old to have.
1:05 a.m. — Seven shots fired in the Hilltop, piercing what had been a quiet start to the day.
1:16 a.m. — Eight shots fired on the Near East Side.
1:56 a.m. — A woman tells police she was threatened with a gun by another woman seven days into their relationship.
2:14 a.m. — High Street is packed with a half dozen bike cops, tow trucks, and police cruisers parked in the middle lane. The red, white, and blue police lights flash beneath the Short North arches’ purple lights.
A 21-year-old man was shot and killed in a neighborhood fight in the Short North back in the spring. That was followed the next weekend by a shootout that left 10 people wounded and police firing their own weapons.
The heavier police presence ordered by the mayor that followed remains on this warm summer night.
This morning, there are no signs of trouble.
Though the bars are about to close the Short North is still alive. People race down the sidewalk on Lime electric scooters. The hum of food cart generators competes with the music blaring out of clubs. For the bars that closed at 2 a.m., the party just moved to the sidewalk, which — depending on where you are standing — smells like weed, vape, cheap cologne or Philly cheesesteaks.
2:25 a.m. — Twelve shots fired in the Hilltop.
2:30 a.m. — A wounded man lying in a dimly lit hospital room is sobbing in the middle of the night. He was shot about eight hours ago and brought to Grant Medical Center like most in the area who need trauma care.
This is rock bottom.
And he is hoping Grant chaplain Johnathan Israel can tell him how to recover.
The man tells the chaplain he recently lost his favorite aunt; how his relationship with his teenaged children isn’t good; and how he saw a light in an unconscious state and wants to know what it means.
Israel is used to patients or their loved ones asking him for answers.
He and the other six Grant chaplains are often the ones calming people when they first arrive at Grant. There is usually not much to tell them or not much they are allowed to share, but they do what they can to provide comfort.
Sometimes it seems impossible, like the time Israel was with a mom cradling her dying daughter while her other daughter was being transported to Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Both innocent girls had been shot when bullets ripped through their apartment walls. And the mom had to choose which daughter to stay with.
Tonight, Israel isn’t dealing with death. The man is in stable condition, but the sobbing continues.
3:10 a.m.— Crickets chirp faintly near Hart and Brown roads. It’s the kind of quiet you’d expect for 3 a.m., but it hardly fits the scene.
Bouncing red and blue police lights illuminate the dark area near the West Side intersection.
A crescent of orange pylons marks a trail of blood.
Dozens of evidence markers dot the road and areas nearby.
Franklin County sheriff’s deputies move about, flashlights scanning the area as they try to piece together what has happened here.
Barely a half-hour earlier, gunfire cut through the quiet. A suspect fled the scene in a white vehicle. One person was transported to Mount Carmel Grove City hospital in stable condition.
Nearby, men are rolling speakers and band equipment up a ramp to a box truck. The band had been playing at the neighboring Bullshotz pub that evening.
No one inside the bar had a clue what was happening outside until the 2:30 a.m. closing time when the 70 remaining patrons walked out and saw all the flashing police lights.
“I have no idea what happened out here,” said the bar's owner. “I’m a goodass dude.”
As the city crawls closer to morning, sheriff’s deputies begin to pack up the scene within the yellow police tape. They stack cones and evidence markers. One deputy holds open a brown paper bag as his partner drops in shell casings, metal clanking as he counts each one.
“Twenty-nine.”
Clink.
“Thirty.”
Clink.
“Thirty-one.”
Clink.
“Thirty-two.”
Clink.
After a while, a man and his son saunter over. They’ve seen the quiet commotion from their house a few doors down.
“Another shooting?” the man asks.
8:47 a.m. — Another 24-hour shift just ended for the trauma surgeon who can’t count the number of injured patients she just treated.
Thirty? Maybe 40?
Dr. Candace Rich Carrle doesn’t have time to keep track as she rushes around Grant Medical Center.
She pulls a Thermos from the pocket of her blue scrubs and flashes a soft smile.
She can count how many times she filled it with coffee.
“Six,” says the doctor who recently celebrated her one-year anniversary as a Grant trauma surgeon. “And some energy drinks in between.”
She can count the number of GSW — gunshot wound — calls she has had on the shift.
There were three patients with gunshot wounds. That’s a low number, especially for a weekend.
The first GSW came about midday on Friday. A young man was brought into the trauma bay and placed in one of the three beds with multiple gunshot wounds.
He was writhing in pain and worried he would die when the nurses removed his clothing, exposing his wounds to Carrle.
Many of the GSW victims ask the doctor if they are going to die.
This man’s wounds were critical but not life threatening — at least not yet. But that can always change.
While Carrle was caring for this man, the communication device attached to her scrubs sent another message: “GSW, Level 1, female, five minutes out.”
Carrle scrambled from one patient to the next. It happens all the time.
“I need quiet,” the doctor told the nurses and policeman standing close by. “Quiet in the room.”
This second GSW was a woman with multiple wounds. But unlike the man lying in the next bed, the woman was eerily calm — and stable.
And that was just about four hours into her shift: Only 20 hours and five Thermos fills to go.
Grant hospital receives between 400 and 500 gunshot victims every year.
“It’s exhausting,” she says just before going home to see her 2-year-old and husband, also a doctor. “Gunshot wounds are not something I want to be good at, but I need to be good at. I hope one day that’s something I don’t have to say.”
1 p.m. — Beneath the sunlight streaming through stained glass windows in the Westerville Church of the Messiah lays a memorial to Taye Green.
The 18-year-old was fatally shot a week earlier at a pool party on Columbus’ Northeast Side.
The display features a balloon arch in the red, black, and white colors of Westerville South High School, where he attended.
There are pictures of Taye, teddy bears, flowers, candles — and one silver star balloon.
About 100 people are in the church, most dressed in white at the request of Taye’s adopted mom, Carla Green. She and her husband, Oliver, adopted Taye and his two younger brothers a few years ago.
Taye’s body isn’t present. There eventually will be a funeral in Saginaw, Michigan, where Taye was born.
The pastor thanks everyone for coming on a “beautiful, terrible” day to celebrate Taye’s life. Those who walk to the podium speak of Taye as a loyal, protective, supportive friend; a talented basketball player; and someone with a big, fun-loving heart. But the raw pain of losing someone so young and so abruptly is still fresh in their voices.
“When I heard that Taye passed, I was confused. I was surprised. And I didn’t know something like that could happen to our youth,” says Mark Orelien, a freshman at Westerville South. “That was one of my first times ever experiencing a friend going away. I’ve experienced death before, but I never thought I would experience death in my age range.”
Next is one of Taye’s best friends, JayJay co*ker.
“He would always watch over me, make sure I was OK, and he would protect me,” she said.
“When I got the call, when I got that call, it was, it was too much. I collapsed. I couldn’t breathe. (I couldn’t) sleep, eat. I don’t even know how ... this is possible. How can I just go on with my life knowing that he’s not here no more?"
co*ker added it was all so unbelievable "because we’re all kids, and I never expected this all to happen.”
A few minutes later, Charlene Green, who is not related to Taye, describes watching her classmate die.
“I was one of the people at the party with Taye,” she says. All I saw was him on the floor.”
The church goes silent as Charlene continues.
“I gave him my shirt to press on his wounds,” she says.
“Kids should not ...” she says softly, then pauses and speaks loud and clear. “Kids should not have guns.”
When the speakers finish, everyone in the church flows outside, where red, black and white balloons are waiting.
“One, two, three, four, five,” Carla Green counts.
“We love you Taye!” the group hollers as they release the balloons into the bright blue sky.
“Fly high Taye,” Carla says. “We love you baby!”
3:03 p.m. — Witnesses tell police that a man was running naked outside waving a gun on the Far South Side. Police then find the gun inside the man’s home, hidden by the washing machine.
4:09 p.m. — Officers respond to Nationwide Children’s Hospital to a report that a child was brought in after being shot. They learn that a bullet tore through the leg of the 7-year-old girl. The girl’s parents tell the officers she was sitting on a stool in the kitchen of their North Linden home when she started screaming and crying. The parents, who didn’t call an ambulance, covered the wound with a paper towel. There must have been a drive-by shooting, they say. They never heard or saw a bullet, they say. When officers later search the family’s home, they find a bullet hole in the back wall. But they also find a gun and box of ammunition inside the gas grill. Detectives don’t believe the drive-by story. They begin investigating the incident as an accidental shooting.
5:02 p.m. — Somali families, most dressed in traditional, formal clothing, are spread out on a soccer field outside of the Southpark Apartments in South Franklinton.
Many sit on blankets talking, eating and selling their handmade goods while children run around them. There will be a wedding to celebrate later this evening, but these regular gatherings have a different motive.
The more time parents can occupy their children with organized events like soccer games and family gatherings, the less chance they will be caught up in the gun violence that surrounds them.
“Every few weeks or months, we have a shooting or someone dies,” says Kabiro Hassan, 35, a father of 10. "My kids — they love their sports. So we try to push them toward that. If you don't push them toward that, then different people are going to show the kids another way, a bad way.”
They haven’t heard gunshots for a few weeks.
They hope it stays that way for the wedding.
6:58 p.m. — A mother is shooting at her own daughter with a handgun as she runs down the street on East Livingston Avenue in the Driving Park neighborhood.
The mother tells officers they were just “warning shots” in an effort to get her to stay and stop running away from home. The girl, who is a juvenile, has run away before. No one was hit, but a stray bullet did strike a nearby house. The residents of that house weren't home.
The daughter didn't return home this evening. The mother was charged with discharging a firearm on or near prohibited premises.
7:50 p.m. — Shot fired on the South Side.
8:48 p.m. — Six shots fired in South Linden.
9 p.m. — A man tells police that three men attempted to steal his Hyundai Elantra in his Canal Winchester neighborhood. When the man yelled at the suspects one of them pointed a gun at him. The man ducked down for cover and when he popped back up the three men sped away in a Kia.
9:15 p.m. — A woman tells police she was chased down and shot at by another woman during a domestic dispute on E. Livingston Avenue in the Driving Park neighborhood.
10:12 p.m. — Four shots fired in North Linden.
10:13 p.m.— Six shots fired in the Hilltop.
10:48 p.m.— HEARD MULTIPLE SHOTS — LIKE 20 … ANOTHER CALL ON THIS SAYS SHE HEARD 10 TO 15.
After a dispatcher sends the alert, officers descend on the West Side to pursue the reports. But when the officers arrive, there is only a dark street.
11:20 p.m. — A fight between two men starts inside Thirsty's Pub on the Far West Side and spills out into the parking lot. It ends with one of them shooting the other. Police arrive on the scene to find several shell casings and blood in the parking lot. The victim is taken to OhioHealth Doctor's Hospital in critical condition and then later Downtown to Grant Medical Center. He ultimately survives.
11:34 p.m. — Four shots fired on the South Side.
11:55 p.m. — A parade of 911 calls from Trabue Crossing Apartments on the Far West Side comes flooding in just before midnight:
“Hi, we’re at the Fairfield Inn in Hilliard, and we just heard a bunch of what sounded like gunshots, and there’s someone outside screaming,” says one 911 caller.
“My brother just got shot. Somebody shot him. He was in the car. Right now, he’s dead … blood, blood, blood. He’s not breathing,” another 911 caller says.
“He’s breathing, he’s breathing … shots fired … someone’s shot ... multiple shots.”
Day Four: Sunday, July 23, 2023
12:01 am — “Oh my gosh! … Hello,” the 911 caller says. “Please send someone. OK the cops are here. … Oh my god.”
Osman Ali is gasping for air and lying in his own blood in the parking lot when officers arrive at the Trabue Crossing Apartments.
The 20-year-old had gone to the local Walmart on the West Side to run an errand for his mom. When he returned, someone fired several shots into his car, and bullets struck him in and around his abdomen.
Many living in the apartment complex thought the gunshots were fireworks.
“That can’t be a shooting,” Joyelle Marteina, a 9-year resident of Trabue Crossing on Crossing Green Lane, just off of Hilliard Rome Road, tells her mom. “Those don’t happen around here.”
Ali’s mom is nearby when the shooting happens and rushes to her son who is a passenger in the car.
Dozens of people from the apartments spill outside into the darkness.
There is screaming and confusion over whether he is still breathing when paramedics arrive a few minutes later.
The ambulance pulls out of the complex with weeping people standing outside the yellow crime scene tape.
About a half hour later, Ali is dead.
He is the city’s 88th homicide of 2023.
12:22 a.m. — Sixteen shots fired in South Linden.
12:23 a.m. — Bullets pierce through the side of a tan duplex and strike a man inside his apartment in South Linden. Someone in a car fired several rounds while driving down 16th Avenue and then sped off before police officers arrived. Paramedics find the bleeding man in stable condition and take him to Grant Medical Center. Neighbors gather on their porch to watch the scene, the smell of cigarette smoke thick in the air. Just steps from where the shots were fired are children’s toys, a kiddie pool and a wagon.
12:58 a.m. — A woman’s frantic voice is shouting over the calm questions of a 911 dispatcher.
“Somebody just shot me!” she wails.
A man had approached her and her boyfriend in their car in an alley on Parsons Avenue on the South Side.
The couple stopped their vehicle in the Kroger Parking lot to talk to the man who then attempted to rob them.
"Give me all you got," the robber said.
When the woman refused, the man shot her in the chest.
As police arrive to the scene, the woman grips a blood-stained cloth to her chest. Blue and red cruiser lights dance around the store parking lot as officers and medics assist the woman out of the car. They guide her as she staggers toward the wide-open ambulance doors and help her onto a stretcher.
“It’s gonna be a busy night,” an officer says as the ambulance drives away.
Why?
“It’s a Saturday, it’s warm, and it’s July,” he says.
1 a.m. — A woman calls the suicide hotline and says she wants to shoot up her house and kill everyone in it, including herself. Police arrive at the woman’s home in South Linden and find her visibly distressed. She again says she no longer wants to live. She is taken to OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital for mental health treatment.
1 a.m. — A woman tells police a man with a gun struck her twice in the chest and threatened her life during a domestic argument. The woman sustains minor injuries but didn't need treatment.
1:32 a.m. — A helicopter descends from the black sky above Grant Medical Center and lands on the roof. Below is a line of 17 emergency vehicles that stretches down the block. Police, sheriff’s deputies and paramedics are huddled outside the ambulance bay, recalling moments from their runs around the city. “Just another routine night, eh?” one paramedic says. “It never stops.”
2:42 a.m. — Five shots fired in South Linden.
2:48 a.m. — Shot fired on Near East Side.
2:51 a.m. — A man named Tristan calls 911.
“There was a shooting across from Jackie O’s Brewery … just 30 seconds ago … and there could have been someone down. I don’t know. I could be wrong. … But I know there was a shooting. Maybe 10 shots or something.”
Police rush to the scene, but there is only an empty street in front of the Downtown bar.
3:45 a.m. — Four shots fired in North Linden.
4:31 a.m. — Unknown number of shots fired in Westgate.
5:14 a.m. —– Six shots fired on Northeast Side.
6:29 a.m. — People report shots being fired into the air outside a Waffle House on the West Side. Officers find shell casings in the parking lot.
6:47 a.m. — A man tells Columbus police a suspect stealing cars in his Galloway neighborhood pointed a gun at him.
7:10 a.m. — Six shots of espresso and several energy drinks have worn off Brittany Parker.
Parker's hazel eyes are heavy after another 12 ½ hour shift as a trauma nurse at Grant Medical Center.
Inside the hospital’s ambulance bay, she recalls another numbing night.
For five years, Parker has been on the front line of gun violence.
Last night, there were two victims brought into the trauma bay with bullets in their bodies. One was shot in the leg. The other had more serious injuries to the groin and abdomen.
Parker thinks they both survived, but she isn’t sure.
She doesn’t have time to make it personal. She can’t worry about each person she helps or who they might be leaving behind.
She has to stay in the moment.
It’s self-preservation. If she lets her guard down, it hurts too much.
Like the time a young man came in riddled with bullets and surgeons had to cut his chest wide open. He didn’t survive. Parker knew that as she walked past his parents in the hallway while they begged a chaplain to share whether their son was going to make it.
“As a human, you want to have compassion in those moments,” she says. “But if you do, it will destroy you.”
Parker needs sleep. Needs a hug from her wife and 2-year-old daughter.
The next shift, the next patient, the next numbing moment is coming.
Monday, July 24, 2023 (Epilogue)
The 80-hour snapshot of gun violence from Thursday to early Sunday was considered slow based on a typical Columbus weekend. Still, there were:
- 10 people shot
- 1 person killed
- 207 dispatched police runs relating to guns
- 121 gunshots detected by ShotSpotter
- 103 dispatched reports of a "person with a gun"
- 50 firearms recovered
- 23 people indicted on felony firearm-related charges
- 22 people arraigned on new gun-related charges
The ripple effects of this one gun-infested weekend of violence will continue, starting now, on Monday morning. That’s when the bullet-riddled body of victim Osman Ali is unveiled at the coroner’s office. It’s when the murder trial of a man who opened fire into the street with an AR-15 rifle concludes. It’s also when the week begins with a stark reminder that gun violence offers no reprieve:
7:54 a.m. — Two walkers stop not far from the body under the blood-soaked sheet and cover their mouths in disbelief. Sometime in the early morning hours, a man killed himself with a .38 caliber revolver in the middle of Frank’s Park on the city’s Far West Side.
He was found a little before sunrise near the playground area and soccer fields. He is now surrounded by five police officers and an investigator from the Franklin County Coroner’s Office who are trying to reach his mother.
The investigator knows the man suffered from mental health issues from the suicide note he left on his phone.
His body is loaded into a white minivan to be taken to the coroner’s office.
“I can’t believe that happened here,” a bystander says. “What if a child had found him?”
7:55 a.m. — “So here we go,” says Kelly Sandberg, a forensic investigator for the Franklin County Coroner’s Office.
Deputy coroners, forensic pathologists, investigators and morgue technicians are seated around the large table for the daily staff meeting.
Sandberg holds an iPad in her right hand as she dives into the details of the 11 bodies that came into the morgue over the weekend, only one of which was related to gunfire. Graphic photos and case details are splashed on a giant screen at the end of the room as the group talks through each one.
Sandberg arrives at a 20-year-old male. It’s Osman Ali, the victim of a fatal shooting late Saturday night.
“He was a passenger of a vehicle, and his mother witnessed the shooting,” Sandberg says.
She goes on to list a number of apparent gunshot wounds:
“Left lateral thigh, left upper thigh, right hip, right upper axilla … deformities to the ribs,” she says.
“That’s it for right now,” Sandberg says as the meeting concludes. “We’ve got two more (deaths) on the way in.”
About an hour later, Ali’s body is lying on a table in the coroner’s autopsy room. His parents already had called the coroner to object to an autopsy for religious reasons. But they eventually agreed after the coroner’s office and a Columbus police homicide detective agreed to do their best to preserve the young man’s body.
As the sound of saws echoes through the room, the two people performing Ali’s autopsy choose small, hand-held tools — the least invasive possible. As the detective watches from a viewing area above them, they slowly and carefully remove the bullets from the young man’s body, honoring his family’s wishes as best they can.
12:28 p.m. — Charae Williams Keys is taking deep gulps of air and exhaling, over and over.
When the jury enters the Common Pleas courtroom, she leans forward with her chin on her folded hands, as if to pray.
After six days of a grueling murder trial, this is the moment Charae finds out whether Elias Smith will go free or to a prison for shooting her husband Jason Keys with an AR-15 rifle.
“Guilty … Guilty … Guilty,” the judge says.
