According to the report, an officer guarding the shooting scene heard someone yelling about 2:50 a.m. in the area of 121 Walnut Street and found Givens dead from a wound to the head. A black assault rifle was seized by police in connection with the shooting.
Carlos Cortez Baker, 30, of Clovernook Drive in Hamilton, and Michael Anthony Gilmore, 30, of Lakewood Drive in Fairfield, also received non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, according to police. They were transported to local hospitals.
All three shootings are connected, police said.
According to the police report, Baker and Gilmore were walking near 139 Walnut when unknown persons began shooting at them. Baker had injuries to his chest and buttocks and Gilmore had injuries to his right arm.
Butler County dispatchers received eight 911 calls from people in the neighborhood starting at about 1:10 a.m., according to the recordings released to the Journal-News.
“You need to get down here,” one man screamed.
A woman, a Walnut street resident, said, “They have been shooting firecrackers and bullets all night.”
A man, also a Walnut Street resident, told dispatchers, “These fools are shooting at each other … it’s crazy, this is off the hook. I have grandchildren.”
The man also said the shooters were trying to kill everyone in one residence.
Another woman told dispatchers everyone in her house was “on the floor.”
She said a bullet went through her house.
“I almost got shot,” she said.
“I want our residents to know that this type of lawlessness is intolerable, and we are working around the clock to bring accountability to those who are responsible. It is important to note that these acts are not random or widespread, but rather targeted acts centered in the second Ward,” said Hamilton Police Chief Craig Bucheit. “This is a matter of grave concern for our entire community, but it is a crisis for the 2nd Ward. I have reached out to residents and leaders in the 2nd Ward and in the African-American community because it is their neighborhood and their young men who have been disproportionately affected by this violence.”
The chief added: “What I’ve found is a groundswell of family, friends, neighbors and leaders who are fed up with the violence. I am confident that together with their support and our law enforcement efforts, we will put a stop to this violence.”
It is the fifth shooting and fourth fatal since June 3.
On the night of June 3, Anthony Broadus, 29, of Edison Avenue, was found shot in the 600 block of East Avenue, which is in the same neighborhood as Sunday's shootings. He died at Butler Regional Airport before he could be transported to the hospital by medical helicopter.
The circumstances that led to the June 3 shooting remain under investigation by Hamilton detectives. The department is offering a reward for the identity of a person of interest in the shooting death of Broadus, but the county coroner has not ruled on Broadus' death, stating it is "pending investigation."
Detectives released a sketch last month of the person of interest and a photo of a vehicle the person may be driving described as a dark-colored Saturn Vue.
Also on the afternoon of June 3, 14-year-old Gabriel E. Mejia, of Pleasant Avenue in Hamilton, was shot in the head while he and a 16-year-old boy were playing with a gun. The 16-year-old, of Cincinnati, is charged in juvenile court with reckless homicide, tampering with evidence and discharging a gun in city limits.
The fatal shooting of a 3-year-old at his Gordon Smith Boulevard residence June 11, was ruled accidental. The police investigation indicated the boy got the handgun out of his mother's purse and shot himself once in the chest.
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