CLEVELAND, Ohio — Kentada Todd was asleep in her Slavic Village home on Oct. 9 when bullets tore through her bedroom wall and ended her life as a mother of six and grandmother of three.
Authorities say the gunmen were children.
Todd’s slaying is among dozens of deaths this year in Cuyahoga County that investigators traced back to youths. Police and prosecutors as of Friday filed murder or other homicide-related charges against 41 teenagers since Jan. 1. The cases involve 30 victims.
That’s up from 34 teens charged last year, and it nearly doubles the 2021 total of 23.
The numbers highlight the scourge of youth violence in the county, violence that has grown dramatically since the pandemic. In 2018, for example, prosecutors filed murder charges against just nine children.
“It’s tragic the amount of lives lost and damaged through youth gun violence,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said. “It’s occurring across our state and throughout our country. Sadly, there is no simple fix.”
Melissa Sickmund, the retired director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice, said many major cities have seen an uptick in youth crime since the pandemic. She said children are part of a larger pattern of violence in the country.
“There’s a shock factor when you hear a 15-year-old killed someone,” Sickmund said. “It sticks with you. If a 35-year-old or a 40-year-old does it, it doesn’t stick out as much. But it does with a 15-year-old.”
Carmen Naso, who led the juvenile unit in the county prosecutor’s office from 2002 to 2008, said the numbers are a cause for concern.
“The consequences of the damage that guns cause are definitely lost on kids today,” Naso said.
Here are capsule descriptions of every 2023 case in which juveniles are accused of homicide.
The cases and the charges
* Two 15-year-olds and a 16-year-old are accused of killing a 22-year-old man on Jan. 8 outside a deli on Lakeview Road in Cleveland. The shooters were inside a red Kia, and one of them rifled the victim’s pockets before they opened fire and fled.
* Authorities accused a 15-year-old boy in the drive-by shooting Jan. 24 of a 21-year-old man at Quincy Gas on Community College Avenue.
* A 13-year-old boy was shot and killed during a botched robbery of a drug dealer on Corkhill Road in Bedford on Jan. 30. The dealer wrestled the gun from the boy and shot him in the torso, and a 15-year-old boy was shot in the knee before he drove away. The 15-year-old and a 16-year-old pleaded guilty to felony murder charges in juvenile court.
* A 16-year-old boy is accused of a Valentine’s Day killing. Prosecutors say he was driving a stolen Hyundai and shot another 16-year-old, who was also driving a stolen car, on West 88th Street in Cleveland.
* A pair of then-17-year-olds were charged this year in connection with a Nov. 24, 2021, killing of a 19-year-old on Scholl Road in Cleveland. The victim was driving a Jeep Compass about 1 p.m. when it crashed into a tree. Two youths were seen running from the scene.
* A man was accused this year in a 2017 killing when he was 17. The then-teen dropped off another 17-year-old who had been shot in the head at MetroHealth Medical Center and told police several different stories about what had happened.
* A 19-year-old man was found shot multiple times inside a stolen Kia Optima on July 28, 2022, on Quigley Road in Cleveland. Prosecutors this year charged a teen, who was then-16, with murder after a security camera captured the two traveling together.
* A 15-year-old boy is charged in the March 20 slaying of another 15-year-old boy on West 31st Street in Cleveland. The two are accused of knocking on the door of another teenager, then shooting him when he opened it. The teen who answered the door fell to the ground, pulled a gun of his own and returned fire, killing one of his attackers.
* A 16-year-old girl is charged in juvenile court with involuntary manslaughter after the bodies of newborn twin boys were discovered May 20 in a shoebox in a garbage can at a house on Ludlow Road in Cleveland.
* A teenager is accused of the Nov. 7, 2021, drive-by shooting death of a 24-year-old man. The victim was playing basketball at Regent Park in Cleveland. Police said the gunman fired shots out of the open sliding door of a minivan as it drove by the basketball court. The youth was 14 at the time of the shooting.
* A 15-year-old boy, 15-year-old girl and 17-year-old girl are charged in the April killing of Kanye Williams, 19. Officers found Williams, a Cleveland resident, shot in his side and slumped over inside a car on Golden Avenue near East 80th Street. The girls are accused of helping the 15-year-old plan a robbery at the house. Both 15-year-olds are charged in juvenile court. The older youth was charged in common pleas court.
* Authorities allege a 17-year-old boy shot a 25-year-old man May 26. The youth is accused of wrestling a gun away from the man during a fight on Union Avenue. The 17-year-old is charged as an adult with aggravated murder.
* A 17-year-old boy is charged along with two men in the killing of two women and the wounding a third in a May 14 shooting at East 76th Street and Korman Avenue in Cleveland. The gunmen pulled up to the women’s car as it sat outside one of the victim’s houses and opened fire.
* A 30-year-old man was shot and killed on June 23 while he was riding his mountain bike in the alley behind a gas station on Lorain Avenue near West 73rd Street. Investigators identified a 17-year-old as the shooter.
* A woman told police she and a 24-year-old man went on June 28 to sell marijuana to a 17-year-old boy she had met earlier at a tattoo parlor at East 75th Street. The boy and a man walked up to the passenger door with guns to rob them. The man reached for the gun, and the two gunmen opened fire, killing him. The 17-year-old is charged with aggravated murder in juvenile court.
* A 16-year-old boy was killed July 9 in a shootout near Mark Tromba Park in Cleveland. Youths in stolen cars fired at each other, leaving 93 shell casings on a city street. A 16-year-old was charged in juvenile court.
* A 16-year-old boy is charged in juvenile court with involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors say he ran a red light at East 78th Street and Union Avenue on July 10, struck a Nissan and killed its driver, a 30-year-old man.
* A deadly shooting of a former prep basketball player at an Aug. 6 block party on Knowles Street in East Cleveland led to a 16-year-old boy being charged in juvenile court with murder. Kyle Jackson, a former standout at John Hay High School, was gunned down on his 20th birthday, and two others were injured in the shooting.
* A 16-year-old boy was arrested in September after officials said he and three adults were involved in the death of 3-year-old Luis Diaz. Prosecutors say a 28-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy began shooting after they were called to an argument on West 66th Street near Denison Avenue. Luis was strapped into his seat in the back of a car when a bullet struck him in the back.
* A 16-year-old was arrested on Oct. 1 in the death of Keshaun Lamar, 16, who was shot and killed at an apartment on Brush Avenue in Euclid. A 20-year-old man, Jay Shan Vance, was also arrested in connection with the shooting.
* A 17-year-old boy surrendered to authorities in October after authorities sought the public’s help in tracking him down. The teen was involved in at least three shootings in a span of five weeks, including the shooting death of 22-year-old Theeontez Davis as Davis rode his bike away from the basketball courts at Arbor Park Village apartment complex in September, officials said.
* Todd, 48, the mother of six, was shot about 12:40 a.m. Oct. 9 inside her East 52nd Street. Surveillance video captured four teenagers getting out of a car and opening fire on the home from the street. Investigators have charged two teens, ages 14 and 16, in the killing. The other two teenagers have not been identified.
* Authorities earlier this year accused five youths in two homicides from 2020. The first homicide took place in November, when a 19-year-old man had been shot in the head. The second took place a month later, when a 15-year-old was killed.
* Four youths in a stolen Kia crashed into Janet Reyes’ Honda Accord in an accident Aug. 3 on Pearl Road in Old Brooklyn. The driver of the stolen Kia was charged in the death of Reyes, 21, of Cleveland. Five people were hurt.
* Four teenagers were charged earlier this year in the death of Dailyn Ferguson, 23, on May 8, 2022, on Mayfield Road in Lyndhurst. Authorities arrested the youths -- ages 17, 17, 17 and 16 -- in September.
* A 16-year-old is charged in the death of a 34-year-old man on Euclid Avenue in East Cleveland. The victim died Jan. 17, a year after the youth and a woman were accused of shooting the man. The woman told authorities that the boy shot the victim, and the youth was recently charged.
* Two teenagers, 16 and 17, are charged in the slaying of Damon Jones, who was killed July 26, 2022. Jones, 19, was killed in a shooting in his back yard on Reyburn Road in Cleveland. The youths were accused earlier this year. An 18-year-old man is also accused in the attack. They wore masks.