By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

WEST END - The young man in blue jeans and Timberland shoes lay dead on the snow-covered bricks of a dark alley in this neighborhood, the second-most common place in Cincinnati to become a homicide victim.

Isaac Newbill, 23, was shot to death Thursday night in the West End, where he grew up and his family still lives.

Police found him about 9:30 p.m. after members of a band practicing three stories above in a John Street warehouse heard a shot and called 911.

Newbill was the 70th person killed in Cincinnati this year - and 70 is a number the city hasn't hit since 1977. This is the fifth straight year for increasing homicide totals.

Nine of the 70 killings have happened in this historic but gritty neighborhood - trailing only nearby Over-the-Rhine, where 11 occurred.

"This is like trying to hold out at the Alamo or something,'' said Dale Mallory, president of the West End Community Council. "Another dead man out in the street, and we don't know why.''

Newbill's uncle, Don Sherman, runs the Cincinnati Black Theater Company.

He said his nephew had his GED and had recently finished some technical classes with Job Corps, a federal program that provides job training and other help to disadvantaged young people.

"He'd finished that up and was going to Cincinnati State in January,'' Sherman said Friday. "That's about all I can say right now. It's too fresh.''

Homicide detectives haven't said what they think might have led to Newbill's death.

Mallory wants more help from the city. The community council's August application for $50,000 to buy 12 crime surveillance cameras is pending.

He said one of the cameras would have been in the area of Newbill's killing.

Instead, he said, the city has focused on helping develop the nearby City West project.

"I guess because there's no heavy vote count down here, it doesn't matter,'' Mallory said.

Meanwhile, the police department says 43 of this year's killings , are solved.

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Email jprendergast@enquirer.com