BY LARA BECKER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
By day, Clifton Heights -- a hilltop neighborhood as well-known for its nightlife as for its recurring violence -- appears benign. The steep streets on Tuesday afternoon were mostly empty. No crowds were pushing, no cars cruising and no bullets flying.
Not yet.
After hours, Clifton Heights transforms into a hot spot, and sometimes a hotbed of violence.
A fatal shooting early Tuesday was the second in just over half a year, within half a block of each other.
Cincinnati police shot and killed car-theft suspect Jermaine Lowe, 21, of Mount Auburn after police say he shot at them near the intersection of Vine and McMillan streets, a block from the University of Cincinnati.
"It's not like this is the first time it happened," said Bora Bilgi, 22, a bartender at the Mad Frog, a nightclub across the street from where the shootout took place. "I'm a little angry because it makes people not want to come here, because maybe they saw a dead body in the road."
Mr. Bilgi said that while some patrons were curious enough to look out the window during the shooting, most continued to dance in the next room.
Some residents also have come to accept the crackling of gunfire as pedestrian.
"Well, it's not really a scary neighborhood," said Teresa Price, who lives in Hollister House, an independent-living facility for disabled people. "You hear a noise, and it makes you jump. Last night, I was in bed and I didn't know what was going on. I heard the gunshots and I was like, oh no, here we go again."
Darlene Angel, building manager at Hollister House, 21 W. McMillan St., said no tenants have complained.
The waiting list of people who want housing in one of the building's 24 units has never been shorter than three people, Mrs. Angel said. And, she said, a new tenant moved in Tuesday morning, hours after the shooting and blocks away from it.
"Bad things happen here, but they're things that happen everywhere," Mrs. Angel said. "I think it's just a coincidence it keeps happening so close to us."
According to statistics, she is right.
Crime figures in Clifton Heights fluctuate, though generally the area is safer today than it was three years ago.
In 1995, there were 479 serious crimes reported in Clifton Heights and nearby University Heights. That number fell to 397 in 1996 but rose to 433 the next year.
Through May of this year, 169 crimes had been reported, most of them non-violent thefts. If the trend continues, about 406 such crimes would be committed by the end of the year.
But skeptics are reluctant to attribute the recent violence to mere probability.
Joyce Ginyard, 38, said police are too quick to shoot. She said that's especially true since her nephew Alonzo Davenport fatally shot two officers in Clifton Heights six months ago before killing himself a few blocks away.
"It's ugly," Ms. Ginyard said. "It's like the police are trigger-happy. They're apt to protect themselves, and they come at you like, "I'm gonna get you before you get me.' The police have gotten so hostile."
Police received harsh criticism after the February 1997 shooting of Lorenzo Collins, a psychiatric patient who waved a brick at them after escaping from University Hospital.
Mr. Collins died a few blocks from where Mr. Lowe fell.
Still, Clifton Heights fans -- even those who work around the corner, across the street or down the alley from areas where violence has occurred -- remain undaunted in their support of the neighborhood.
"It's a great place to be, but if you don't like it here, it will eat you alive," said Barry Miller, 27, a former Clifton Heights resident who still works there. "There are bad people out there. I probably wouldn't walk around by myself at night, but I'm not going to lock myself in somewhere.
"I still drive with the windows down," he said.
