Wednesday, April 21, 1999
Northside pellet shootings adding up
Police say they're related
BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The X-rays of Carol Unger's skull show how close the Northside worker came to serious harm Monday.
“This close,” said her husband, Fred, pinching his thumb to his index finger Tuesday as he stood at the crime scene — the parking lot of their family business.
Mrs. Unger, 63, was walking from the lot to the Unger Distributing Co. warehouse at 4110 Dane Ave. at 2:10 p.m. Monday when she became the victim of a drive-by shooting.
Her X-rays from University Hospital show the two shots that came through her left temple, missing her eye by little more than an inch.
Injuries not serious
Cincinnati police have identified her as one of eight victims in a string of pellet shootings that have plagued the neighborhood since February.
None of the shots has caused serious injury. Mrs. Unger was able to walk away from University Hospital the same day she was shot.
She and other victims have described the same shooters: young men in a small, white car — possibly a Toyota Tercel or Nissan Maxima.
“I think somebody knows who they are,” said Sgt. Bill Halusek, a District 5 supervisor working on the case. He asks people to call Crime Stoppers at 352-3040 for a reward of up to $1,000 for information that leads to arrests.
The district has beefed up neighborhood patrols and has called in mounted patrol officers and the violent crimes task force to close in on suspects, he said. Because of the drive-by nature of some of the shootings, the gang unit also is investigating.
Police do not yet know the motivation behind the pellet shootings, Sgt. Halusek said. All but one of the victims identified is white, and the victim who is black was not home at the time her bedroom window was shot out. Police have only a vague description of the suspects.
String of troubles
The pellet shootings come as the latest blemish for Northside. In the last year, the neighborhood has been the site of a dozen arsons, a brutal stabbing and the fatal police shooting of a suspect last month during a traffic stop.
The neighborhood is one of Cincinnati's most diverse, with a racial mix that's 21 percent black and 79 percent white. Residents call it “a neighborhood in transition” — a place where hip stores share the block with vacant buildings and where young executives are buying fixer-upper homes.
It's also a place where the most serious violent crimes and property crimes fell by 21.6 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same time last year.
Until now, Mr. Unger has never had a problem with crime in the neighborhood. But he said he'll feel better once the shooters are caught.
“Police are doing a good job,” he said. “We'll find them. They'll be punished.”
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