BY TANYA ALBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Gail Jenkins mourns for her son. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

Gail Jenkins chatted with her son, Arvie, Saturday on the deck of the family's Woodlawn home. When he said he was heading downtown with some friends, she gave him some money and told him to have a good time.

Arvie Jenkins

It was the last time she would see her son alive.

Arvie Jenkins, 21, was shot to death near the corner of Race and Ninth streets early Sunday, shortly after midnight, while hundreds jammed the streets playing music and sitting atop cars as traffic moved at a crawl.

"That's the way he looked last night," his mother said clutching a picture of her son. "Not a care in the world."

Police would not identify a motive in the shooting. Ms. Jenkins said a friend who was with her son told her Mr. Jenkins may have tried to stop a robbery.

"He just went downtown to be with the people," Ms. Jenkins said. Weekend events downtown included the annual Coors Light Festival, and Ohio American Legion and Free Will Baptist conventions.

Cincinnati police said neither Mr. Jenkins' death nor two other shootings hours later were associated with the events.

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Derrick Jones, 27, of Louisville was shot in the chest at 700 Elm St. about 3:15 a.m. Sunday as he tried to stop someone from breaking into his vehicle, said Lt. Tim Schoch, public information officer for the Cincinnati Police.

Javelle Bates, 21, of Clifton, was shot twice in the calf at 2:08 a.m. in the 1000 block of Central Avenue. He was walking with friends from Fountain Square when two men approached them and, after a discussion, the men pulled out guns.

Police Sunday searched for the man suspected of shooting Mr. Jenkins. They described him as a black male age 18 to 21, about 5 feet 6 to 5 feet 7 inches tall with a thin build, dark skin, short hair on top and cut very close on the sides. He was wearing a white T-shirt and blue-jeans shorts.

They also searched for four people in a black convertible who were videotaping the area at the time of the murder.

The person suspected of shooting Arvie Jenkins is described as male, black, 5-feet-7 and in his late teens or early 20s. If you have information, call 352-3542 or 352-3040.

In Woodlawn, about a dozen of Mr. Jenkins' relatives mourned at the house where he grew up.

"He was quiet and easygoing," said Beatrice Reid, Mr. Jenkins' grandmother, who helped raise him. "He didn't bring no trouble." Mr. Jenkins graduated from Princeton High School in 1994. The 6-foot 3-inch wide receiver played football there for four years. "He wore number 6," his mother said.

Mr. Jenkins attended Kentucky State University for 1ï years, where he studied criminal justice. He was also the father of three boys - a 3-year-old and twin 1-year-olds.

Residents said Ninth Street was a sea of cars Saturday night and early Sunday.

"The scheduled events went wonderful," Lt. Schoch said. "Unfortunately, these people that participated in the cruising and the hanging around without a purpose were responsible for acts of violence."

"You could see white lights headed in one direction and red lights in the other direction," said Joyce Johnson, who friends had to drop off a few blocks from her 9th Street apartment around 1:30 a.m. Sunday because the streets were so crowded.

Resident Jennifer Jura, 25, said the street looked like a scene out of Los Angeles.

"It was chaos," she said. "But I didn't feel unsafe through it."

More than 100 police officers worked extra duty this weekend to handle the crowd - estimated at 50,000 people.

"The problem is with a few individuals that make it bad for everyone else," Lt. Schoch said. "We're going to look at this total weekend and determine what we can do to improve on personnel and resources to diminish the acts of violence."