“The relentless persistence of Cleveland police homicide detectives helped secure an indictment in this case,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor O’Malley said in a statement obtained by the paper.
“It is through their hard work that we can begin to seek justice for these victims.”
Biles-Thomas, who went to high school in Cleveland before serving in the U.S. Army, is so far, the only person charged in the New Year’s Eve triple-homicide.
Representatives for Simone Bile’s have yet to issue a statement on the matter.
The victims of the attack, 23-year-old Devaughn Gibson, 19-year-old DelVaunte Johnson, and 21-year-old Toshon Banks, were found with multiple gunshot wounds.
Johnson was a student, Gibson was a barber, and Banks was a laborer.
Police say the shooting occurred when a group of men showed up at a party held at an Airbnb uninvited. When the group of men was asked to leave, one of the members opened fire.
“We’ve had very few problems. This is somebody that rented it, had a party that got out of control and horrific things happened,” Councilman Anthony Brancatelli said.
“One of the things I’ve learned early on in this job is that we can’t regulate morality. If people want to do illegal acts, we can only put into place punishment when they do and remind people of what their responsibilities are. We can mitigate it the best we can. And then when something horrific like this happens we have to have the ability to react to it. We reacted. [Airbnb] shut them down as a host. That’s all we can ask for is people to be responsible,” Brancatelli said.
The Airbnb was reportedly located above a pizzeria, the Plain Dealer reported.
Families of Victims Speak Out
Family members and other loved ones spoke about the loss of those who were killed.Cheria Hall-Hobbs, the mother of Gibson, said that her family started a scholarship fund in Gibson’s name. Shortly after the death of Gibson, Hall-Hobbs’ cousin was shot dead.
“Whoever gets this is someone who has the same determination as my son,” said Hall-Hobbs, noting her son was enrolled in trucking school and was a student at Tri-C with a 4.0-grade point average. “Someone who wants something, they might just need a little help.”
US Crime Statistics
Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (pdf).
While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend. Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an Epoch Times analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.