Less than 30 minutes after classes ended at Latonia Elementary on Tuesday, shots rang out near the school. Students and staff still inside the building were told to shelter in place. Outside, near 39th and Decoursey streets, police found two 14-year-olds shot in the street. One of the two, Amani Smith, later died at the hospital.
It was the second deadly shooting in Covington within 24 hours and the city’s third shooting death this month. Last Monday, a Warren Street apartment shooting ended in the death a two-year-old boy. On Jan. 6, a woman shot in Latonia by the father of her children died.
All three incidents seized the attention of Northern Kentucky citizens – some seemingly unsurprised at what’s happening in the area.
“It happens all the time,” Vincent Loprinzi told reporters after Tuesday’s shooting. “That’s the kind of thing where I wish it was shocking and surprising. Tomorrow I’m going to forget about it. It happens every day. Horribly sad … it’s just where we’re at in the world.”
The truth is back-to-back shooting deaths in Northern Kentucky’s largest city are not a daily occurrence, per available data. The Covington Police Department’s LexisNexis® 2023 community crime map and a news report search reveal only a handful of homicides in Covington last year (Kentucky State Police will release updated statewide crime data – including homicides, assaults, drug crime, vandalism, weapons violations and more in Covington and all of NKY – later this year).
Between 2021 and 2022, state police crime data shows the number of homicides in Covington actually fell 50%, from eight in 2021 to four in 2022. But crime comes in many forms. Local and state officials express specific concerns now with drug and juvenile crime in NKY and throughout the state.
Sen. John Schickel (R-Union) called out juvenile crime specifically as a “huge problem” across NKY in a phone interview with LINK nky. At issue, he said, are weak laws limiting what law enforcement or prosecutors can do in juvenile justice cases.
“We have a big juvenile crime problem because our juvenile crime laws don’t have any teeth in them,” said Schickel, a career law enforcement officer who is both a former US Marshall and former Boone County jailer.
This legislative session, Schickel is sponsoring Senate Bill 11 – a bill to notify schools when a juvenile faces potential criminal charges involving drugs, assault, weapons charges and more. And he’s not alone in his mission for criminal justice reform.
Also pending in Frankfort is the 74-page Safer Kentucky Act, also called House Bill 5, that Louisville Republican Rep. Jared Bauman unveiled in 2023. An amended HB 5 cleared its first major hurdle Thursday in the Kentucky House, passing the chamber 74-22.
HB 5 is what is called an “omnibus” measure – a bill stuffed with dozens of statutory changes lawmakers pass under one broad title. HB 5’s title reads like a Dostoevsky novel: “AN ACT relating to crimes and punishments.” It’s intentionally vague to cover a range of crimes plus peripheral justice issues — like homelessness and mental health issues — that Kentucky’s largest cities often face.
Take Louisville, where gang crime has reportedly hit businesses and residents hard in recent years. Last year the FBI tracked up to 25 gangs responsible for “at least 30%” of Louisville metro area’s violent crime according to WHAS-TV. The city had at least 150 homicides in 2023 alone, according to Bauman.
As for gang involvement, adults aren’t the only ones involved. Gang members in Louisville are as young as 14 years old, WHAS-TV reported last year.
“Violent criminals are preying on our innocent and unsuspecting neighbors throughout Louisville and across the Commonwealth,” Bauman said in a press statement. “Public safety is an issue that unites Kentuckians across the state. Kentuckians deserve better.”
Three NKY lawmakers – Rep. Mike Clines (R-Alexandria), Rep. Stephanie Dietz (R-Edgewood) and Rep. Steve Rawlings (R-Burlington) – are cosponsors of HB 5. They voted Thursday to support its provisions, which include crackdowns on fentanyl trafficking, carjackings, vandalism, and the use of stolen guns to commit criminal acts often linked to gang crime. Carjacking – not a crime in current law in the Kentucky penal code – would be a felony offense if HB 5 becomes law. Vandalism to property could bring felony charges at $500 in damages, down from $1,000 in damages in current law.
The other NKY lawmakers who voted for HB 5 were Reps. Kim Banta (R-Fort Mitchell), Kimberly Moser (R-Taylor Mill) and Marianne Proctor (R-Burlington).
The bill’s pièce de résistance may be its inclusion of a “three strikes law” requiring life in prison without parole when someone is convicted of their third violent felony. It’s legislation that could play into Kentucky’s continued war against the deadly drug fentanyl. Under HB 5, a fentanyl-related overdose death could carry a first-degree manslaughter charge if someone sold fentanyl to the victim.
“Drug trafficking is destroying our communities with substances like fentanyl being a leading contributor to overdose deaths,” Bauman said in a press statement. “Those who deliberately sell fentanyl know how dangerous it is to be exposed to even a small amount of this dangerous drug and they are responsible for causing death by delivery.”
Over in Boone County, the Sheriff’s Office reported a total of six homicides in 2022 per the Kentucky State Police statewide crime report that year, the most recent available. The number could have potentially been larger had HB 5 been law, given Kentucky drug statistics: At least 26 people died of a fentanyl-related overdose in Boone County in 2022, according to the state’s overdose fatality report that year (also the most recent available). In Kenton County, fentanyl-related deaths exceeded 50 in 2022 per the report. Campbell County reported a smaller number of deaths linked to fentanyl that year (between five and 25).
In an email Tuesday, Boone County Sheriff Michael Helmig told LINK nky he believes HB 5 will reduce the effects of fentanyl in the county “while reducing crime in Northern Kentucky.”
“Fentanyl continues to destroy our Northern Kentucky communities and its devastating effect is due in large part to how brazen traffickers have become,” Helmig said. “The increased penalties, to include potentially charging fentanyl traffickers with murder, should make every drug dealer rethink where they conduct their illicit business.”
Helmig said he supports the three strikes law language that he “believes that repeat violent offenders have no place in our society.”
Overall the bill is “a step in the right direction,” said Helmig. Prosecutors could seek the death penalty or life in prison for the intentional killing of police, firefighters, or other first responders if HB 5 becomes law. Those who commit violent crimes would serve at least 85% of their sentence before they’d be eligible for parole.
LINK nky requested comment on HB 5 from the Covington Police Department, but no response had been received at the time of publication.
Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders told LINK nky in an email he really likes a section of HB 5 expanding the list of crimes that can be prosecuted under the state’s violent offender statute. Carjacking, first-degree burglary, first-degree arson are just a few crimes added to the list.
“The best part of the Safer KY Act is the expansion of the list of violent offenses to include crimes that common sense tells us are violent, but our current law inexplicably calls ‘non-violent,’” Sanders said. “Crimes like Attempted Murder, Manslaughter, Reckless Homicide, Attempted Rape, Arson, 2nd Degree Assault, 2nd Degree Robbery, and more, have been misclassified for decades, meaning dangerous felons were being let out of prison after serving only a small fraction of their sentences. Hopefully this will soon stop when HB 5 passes.”
When asked about the potential for increased incarceration under HB 5, Bauman told the House he expects the bill to be a crime deterrent. Longer sentences without early release for some violent criminals could mean less recidivism, or return to jail or prison, some proponents say.
The bill drills even deeper, allowing business owners and their employees to use a “reasonable amount of force” to protect themselves or their property from criminal acts – something Bauman referred to as “shopkeeper’s privilege.” Fleeing or evading police could carry five to 10 years in prison.
Provisions banning homeless or “street” camps in public areas (like city bus stops and parks) and changes to laws governing involuntary commitment of people experiencing mental illness are in HB 5, too.
Not everyone is happy with the proposal. Several lawmakers from Louisville and Lexington decried HB 5 Thursday, saying it emphasizes incarceration over what Rep. Josie Raymond (D-Louisville) called “evidence-based solutions” to address crime in the state.
“This bill, rather than acknowledge the difficult work to make Kentuckians safer, has one solution – increase penalties! Lock them up!,” said Raymond in a floor speech before Thursday’s vote.
Also voting no was Rep. Sarah Stalker (D-Louisville), saying the bill lacks compassion for people experiencing homelessness at a time when Kentuckians face an affordable housing shortage. According to a 2022 report from the Kentucky League of Cities, “more Kentuckians are experiencing unstable housing situations as rent prices continue to increase, many on the verge of eviction.” It cited data showing 8% of middle-income earners are burdened by housing costs, with over 30% of their income spent on housing.
For extremely low-income earners in Kentucky, the housing cost burden is 62%, per the league.
“This bill lacks a lot in my opinion,” Stalker said on the floor Thursday. “It lacks compassion for those vulnerable populations experiencing homelessness. It lacks real cooperation with service providers and individuals with lived experiences in areas like substance abuse and reentry. These groups are closest to the issues that are farthest away from the table when bills like this are being drafted.”
Attempts by House Democrats to vote on HB 5 in smaller, more manageable pieces (“divide the question”) and to table (or shelve) the bill were defeated.
Next HB 5 goes to the Kentucky Senate. Changes to the bill are possible there – only two out of 28 amendments (a committee substitute and Bauman’s own floor amendment) – made it through the House. Lawmakers have until April 15 to cast a final vote on the bill and send it to Gov. Andy Beshear for his signature.
Follow the status of HB 5 during the 2024 General Assembly here.