A long hot summer?

There's an uptick of reported gunfire in Youngstown's police reports of late and two murders two weeks in a row has to lead some at the police department to wonder if there'll be more to come in the summer.

The shooting April 3 of Kendall Ware was especially puzzling. Police found his body in a submerged SUV in the Mahoning River off the Salt Springs Road exit.

These were not your typical thugs. Someone had to go through a lot of trouble to shoot him, put the SUV in drive and then aim it for the river. Obviously, they were trying to hide something (and if memory serves me, this is the same part of the river where Gina Tenney's body was found on Dec. 30, 1985, after Bennie Adams raped and strangled her, underneath the railroad bridge).

Although the homicide count presently is three behind last year's count of 10, last year six people were killed in one event, which inflated those statistics.

As to what will happen if there are layoffs in the police department is anyone's guess. But the mood on Boardman Street whenever that is mentioned is dark and pensive, as it probably is in some of the city's rougher neighborhoods.