TOLEDO, Ohio — Thiry-nine people have been killed in Toledo in 2022 so far, with the youngest being a 7-month-old girl.
At this time last year, the city had 46 homicides. 2021 and 2020 were record-breaking years for homicides in Toledo, with 70 total in 2021 and 57 total in 2020.
On Aug. 31, the city's violence interrupter program hit the streets for the first time in an effort to stunt the growing gun violence issues.
"Not only are we trying to stop the violence and bring down the violence, we're trying to build productive civilians in society," violence interrupter Isaac Miles said.
Toward the end of April 2022, Toledo's Safety Director Brian Byrd called the program a success and said he intended to expand it with teams in the Lagrange corridor and east Toledo.
Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said he was planning to hire more violence interrupters toward the end of June.
Toledo police chief George Kral said the Toledo Police Department has been working on initiatives like Operation Triple Beam and quarterly gang sweeps to hone in on criminals.
"We're going to continue with partnering up with federal and state and local partners to keep pressure on shooters, but we'll take a look at what worked well and what didn't and try to build on it for next year," Kral said.
While 2022 has seen fewer homicides in Toledo than the past two years, the city saw 38 total in 2019 and 36 total in 2018.