All day the sun had beaten down on Winton Terrace's non-air-conditioned, low-rise apartment buildings, making them like furnaces, even past nightfall.

        Hundreds of adults and children enjoyed an ad hoc block party at the busy intersection of Este Avenue and Kings Run Drive.

        Police drove by.

        Beat cops, used to the nearby parking lot and businesses being gathering places, felt it unnecessary to stop the gathering.

        They didn't need to, residents said. Everything seemed peaceful. Among the 200 to 400 people there, there were no fights or disturbances, no obvious drunkenness or drug use.

        Kevin Aboud, who has managed the grocery store there for six years, locked up at 1 a.m. thinking it had been a good night. He went home, never thinking that in a few minutes this would be the scene of one of Cincinnati's most violent attacks.
       

Toss the usual assumptions

        Sometime before 1:20 a.m. Sunday, someone threw a firecracker into an open car window, and the driver retaliated by shooting into the crowd.

        Seven adults and children were hit.

        Idris Cockrell, 24, of Westwood, died Monday morning, the city's 38th homicide victim this year.

        Early this week, some Winton Terrace residents replayed the night with me. We sought blame, lessons to be learned, strategies to prevent it from happening again.

        We found that the usual assumptions didn't hold up.

        For instance, I asked why so many children were outside instead of indoors, asleep.

        Even police said it was too hot to go to bed that night; outside was the only cool place to be.

        Curfew enforcement wouldn't have broken up the party, either. Many of the children were with parents and by law could stay, said Lt. Kurt Byrd, a police spokesman.

        Winton Terrace residents said they can't blame police; officers were visible just minutes before the shooting. Lt. Byrd said police were on the scene two minutes after the 911 call.
       

Random act of violence

        Eugene Lomax Jr., a longtime resident, said the Winton Terrace community is more closely knit than meets the eye. The block party, which attracted many outsiders and was unstructured, was not typical of the neighborhood.

        Arnold Bush Sr., a resident, has for more than 20 years run youth sports programs and Winton Terrace's annual block party.

        It's usually late in the summer, he said, in a more enclosed spot on the basketball courts.

        Police regularly staff it, and hundreds of people participate. There are organized events and games for children.

        There have been no major problems.

        “I put the troublemakers to work,” said Mr. Bush, 65.

        But Saturday night's party was held at a busy intersection, and there were few organized activities for children.

        Even if there had been, some children were bound to be playing with firecrackers, residents said. It's that time of year.

        Could this tragedy have happened in many of Cincinnati's neighborhoods?

        With the prevalence of guns in most of Cincinnati's poor neighborhoods, you bet.

        But it's unlikely anyone could have stopped the events that erupted in a matter of minutes, except, of course, the person with the firecracker and the one with the gun.

        In that respect, this shooting was as random as a man driving into an Oktoberfest crowd or a disgruntled worker going postal.

        Call Denise Smith Amos at 768-8395, or e-mail damos@enquirer.com.

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