Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Welcome to Monday’s edition of The Pennant. To listen to this newsletter, click the “Listen Online” link in the top right corner of this email.

On this day in 2008, Cincinnati Reds star Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 600th career home run, becoming the sixth player in major league history to reach the mark.

A Toledo festival shooting leaves 12 wounded and the gunmen still at large and Ohio's property tax repeal falls short of the 2026 ballot.

Also, our editorial asks what it will take to stop kids from killing kids.

TOLEDO - At least 12 people ranging in age from 14 to 61 were wounded Saturday in a shooting near Toledo's Old West End Festival. Police say two gunmen apparently fired at each other before fleeing. No arrests had been made as the search entered a third day on Monday, and all 12 victims were reported in stable condition. This story continues here. 

COLUMBUS - A citizen group's effort to eliminate Ohio property taxes will fall short of qualifying for this year's ballot, co-founder Brian Massie said Friday. The group, AxOHTax, will now aim for November 2027, needing at least 413,488 valid signatures.

COLUMBUS - The Ohio House voted 61-28 to override Gov. Mike DeWine's veto of item 66, which restricts the property tax levies school districts and other subdivisions can put before voters. For more on this go here. 

Tick-borne illness is climbing fast in Ohio, and health officials say the most dangerous stretch is here.

Cases of tick-borne disease usually peak in June and July, just as families head outdoors for the summer. Ohio recorded 40 Lyme disease cases in 2010. By 2025, that figure had grown nearly sevenfold to more than 2,800, according to the Ohio Department of Health. 

Tick-bite emergency room visits this spring hit their highest levels in years, with young children and older adults among the hardest hit. 

Officials urge Ohioans to walk in the center of trails, avoid tall grass, wear long sleeves and light colors, and use EPA-registered repellent. Check yourself, your kids and your pets after time outdoors, and remove any tick promptly.

It was supposed to be a celebration. On Saturday, gunfire tore through the Old West End Festival in Toledo, a neighborhood tradition in its 53rd year. Twelve people were shot, ranging in age from 14 to 61. Police say at least two people fired at each other in a crowd of hundreds, and one witness described a group of juveniles attacking another juvenile just before the shots.

It was not an isolated weekend. In Cleveland, a 12-year-old boy, Aydin Taylor, was killed in a crash involving a stolen car. Cincinnati has been burying children for years — two 11-year-olds shot dead near the same West End playground. As of the writing of this editorial, those cases remain unsolved.

Here is the hard truth. Since 2020, firearms have killed more American children and teenagers than car crashes or anything else. Youth gun deaths jumped about 50% between 2019 and 2021, and among kids ages 10 to 16, they doubled from where they stood before the pandemic. The numbers eased a little in 2024, but they are still higher than they were before COVID.

The most dangerous part may be how easily we read past it. We see the headline, note that it happened in some other neighborhood, and move on. That habit is how a community loses control of itself. When outrage gets this hard to come by, we have already started to surrender.

And yet we seem to have plenty of outrage to spare. We will pack a council meeting over a statue that has stood for 200 years, or a word someone said that stung. Those fights feel righteous, and they never end, because hurt feelings and old arguments have no final fix. But a child shot dead in a park is not a statue or a slip of the tongue. That is a wound a town carries for a generation. The symbols and the slogans can wait for another day. Right now, we have to decide what truly must change.

We can argue about laws and police staffing, and those debates matter. But no statute pulled a trigger Saturday. The hands on those guns belonged to young people, many barely old enough to drive, who decided a dispute was worth a magazine of bullets in a public park.

Think about that. That's how some teenagers settle conflicts these days.

You cannot curfew your way to safety. A curfew sends a kid home. It does not change what he does once he gets there. What stops this is adults — parents, coaches, pastors, neighbors — who teach children discipline and the plain worth of another person's life.

The shooting stops when the adults in these kids' lives decide enough is enough. Something has to give, and it starts with us refusing to look away.

Questions, comments and letters to the editor are welcome. Email [email protected].

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