And a hot afternoon marked only with shrieks of children splashing at Middletown’s splash pad near Douglass Park was interrupted by a single gun shot that left a Middletown man with life-threatening injuries.
Four of Hamilton’s six homicides this year have occurred in the past month. Antonio Heath was discovered dead in a bathroom after being stabbed June 12, and James Williams was stabbed while mowing his lawn following an altercation with Arthur Peter Smith on May 28.
Sgt. Ed Buns said that the department doesn’t typically see an uptick in homicides in warmer months, despite this year’s events.
“There’s not one identifiable cause,” he said. “It’s not just people getting hot and mad.”
“We certainly have more calls as the weather warms up,” Hamilton Detective Richard Burkhardt told the Journal-News last week.
According to 2013 data provided by the department, total service calls increased from 5,511 in April to 6,177 in May. They remained around 6,000 per month for the rest of the summer, hitting a high in July of 6,449 before dropping back down to 5,354 in September.
Out of 64,005 total calls in 2013, 24,823, or nearly 39 percent, were placed in the summer months.
As temperatures gets warmer, people are more likely to get hot under the collar, scientists say. A 2013 study found that aggressive acts — like committing violent crimes — become more likely with each added degree.
Researchers analyzed 60 studies on violent crime rates in the United States, lab simulations that tested police decisions on when to shoot, recent wars, and even cases where pitchers threw deliberately at batters in baseball. They found a common thread over centuries: Extreme weather — very hot or dry — means more violence.
“When the weather gets bad we tend to be more willing to hurt other people,” said economist Solomon Hsiang of the University of California, Berkeley, who was the lead author of the study published in 2013 by the journal Science.
Experts speculate that spikes in crime may be due to the increase in the number of interactions that people have with one another during the warmer months. Warmer weather can bring together potential wrongdoers, victims and belongings in the same place.
Middletown police said a red Jeep Cherokee pulled into Douglass Park around 2 p.m. Wednesday, and a black male got out of the vehicle and fired one shot that struck Carlos D. Knight, 32, in the head. The suspect returned to the vehicle, with three people inside, and sped away.
Dozens of people who had been playing basketball or cooling off in the splash pad stood in shock.
When police arrived, they found Knight lying in the parking lot, only a few feet away from where children had been playing.
Knight was treated by Middletown paramedics, then flown by CareFlight to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton with life-threatening injuries, said Middletown Police Lt. Scott Reeve.
Middletown resident Kelli Gregory, one of Knight’s cousins, said Douglass Park has been “very peaceful” recently, with more city events being held there.
“This is crazy,” she said.
Middletown police located the Jeep less than a mile away in the parking lot of the Townhouse West housing development off South Main Street. A K-9 unit and the Butler County Sheriff’s Department helicopter searched for the four suspects, Reeve said.
In Hamilton, police were called to the 2700 block of Hilda Avenue at about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday after they said Alfred Rutherford fatally shot his 29-year-old daughter, Lacey Rutherford, and Steve Watkins, 41, of Wilmington.
A woman, who identified herself as Rutherford’s wife, called 911 at 2:23 a.m. and told dispatchers, “my husband killed my daughter.”
Rutherford shot his daughter in the throat with a shotgun, the woman told dispatchers in the 911 call. She added that they had been arguing.
Police Chief ScottScrimizzi described the shooting as “a horrible situation.” The chief said the house was “full of people” when the shooting occurred, including several children.
Rutherford was arrested at about 11 a.m. in Joyce Park off River Road, according to Buns. He was taken into custody without incident while walking along Joe Nuxhall Boulevard and he was not armed, police said.
“Clearly, with a suspect that’s killed two people, we worried, one, that he may kill himself or engage law enforcement. It was a very dangerous situation with him being out on the street,” Scrimizzi said. “The fact that he was taken into custody without incident is the only good thing that’s come out of this whole thing so far.”
A neighbor said she heard gunshots this morning while sitting on her front porch smoking a cigarette.
“I was awake and heard four shots go off just before 3 a.m. I went to find my phone to call 911. By the time I found my phone, the cops were already there,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified.
She said she saw Rutherford pacing up and down in the front yard before getting in the car and driving away.
“He didn’t say anything or do anything, didn’t even stop at the stop sign,” she said.
Rutherford was charged by Hamilton detectives with two counts of murder and obstruction of official business. He is scheduled to be arraigned this morning in Hamilton Municipal Court.
The Associated Press and Staff Writers Lot Tan and Lauren Pack contributed to this report.
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