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The number of domestic violence deaths inches up in Ohio, including 15 children and teens

By: Karen Kasler | Statehouse News Bureau
Posted on: Friday, October 11, 2024

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — The number of Ohioans killed in domestic violence incidents in the last fiscal year ticked up a bit, with kids comprising more than a dozen of those deaths. Those numbers are consistent with previous years, but still tragic for advocates.

The Ohio Domestic Violence Network says at least 114 people, 56% of them women, died in domestic violence incidents from July 1, 2023 to June 1. The total includes 79 victims and 35 attackers. Sixty-four were women; 50 were men. Two-thirds of the victims were killed by guns. Five of the women were pregnant.

This year’s total includes 15 kids under 18, with the youngest victim four months old. There were 33 children in Ohio were at the scene of a parent’s murder, and at least 79 children lost a parent. Five of the killers were teenagers.

This year’s total also includes a police officer. Euclid Police Officer Jacob Derbin, 23, was ambushed and killed in May while searching a dark back yard for a man who threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend and her mother.

“For the past three years, we have been able to say that no law enforcement officers in Ohio were killed in the line of duty responding to a DV call. We’ve had officers shot every year, but for the past three, they’ve all survived their injuries,” said ODVN’s senior director of policy and prevention Lisa DeGeeter. “We cannot say that again this year.”

Six other law enforcement officers and a police dog were also shot, but survived.

The numbers from this year’s report are up slightly from last year’s total of 112. But the numbers have stayed consistent in the nine years ODVN has been compiling the figures. DeGeeter said comprehensive services that reach people when they need them are needed to lower those numbers.

“Waiting lists, people waiting to get in and people unable to get in become an enormous issue. These are problems that have to be solved when they occur. And so and that takes funding. That takes staff,” DeGeeter said.”Twenty-four percent of our programs can’t answer their hotline every time it rings. They are that kind of busy. So it’s really about getting the workforce out there. And you’ve got to have funding to pay staff.”

Ohio spends 85 cents per capita on domestic violence programs. Surrounding states spend an average of $1.77:

• Kentucky: $3.06 per capita
• Pennsylvania: $1.71 per capita
• West Virginia: $1.41 per capita
• Michigan: $1.39 per capita
• Indiana: $1.31 per capita