By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

As Cincinnati detectives worked over the weekend on two new homicides that put the city ahead of last year's record pace, they also arrested their youngest accused killer so far this year - a 14-year-old.

The teenager was arrested in connection with the May 13 shooting death of David Hutchinson, 20, in Over-the-Rhine. The teen is the third juvenile charged in a Cincinnati killing this year.

Thirty-one people have been killed in the city so far - one more than the 30 victims at this time in 2003, a year that ended in 75 deaths, a 26-year high.

The numbers, as well as other crime statistics, will be discussed today at City Council's Law and Public Safety Committee as part of the group's monitoring of the city's quality-of-life index.

"The numbers are startling enough,'' said Councilman David Pepper, committee chairman. "We've got to do more.''

The arrest of the teenager brings to at least 16the number of cases cleared this year with arrests, warrants or, in one case, the death of a suspected offender. That amounts to a closure rate so far of just over 50 percent.

The homicide unit is working on a report analyzing trends in Cincinnati homicides over the past several years. Chief Tom Streicher said he hopes it will be finished soon.

He has said the report likely won't find anything new, but he hopes it will explain to the community what's going on with the killings.

He continues to say most are related to drugs.

So far this year:

• Virtually all the victims, 27, were male; four were women.

• Most of the victims, 80 percent, were black; six were white.

• The victims' average age: 28. Seventeen were in their 20s. The youngest, Dionta Lamar Brown, was 16.

E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com