By Jennifer Edwards
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Just four days into the new year, Cincinnati saw its first homicide during a violent weekend marred by two deaths, three non-fatal shootings and a narrow escape for a pizza deliveryman.

On Saturday, a 50-year-old man was fatally beaten in the West End.

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Police also discovered the body of a man, believed to be 35 years old, inside a car in University Heights Saturday night. They were waiting Sunday for autopsy results to determine if that death, too, involved foul play.

On Sunday, a 33-year-old man, a 16-year-old boy and another unidentified man were shot in separate incidents in Over-the-Rhine and College Hill. All three are expected to recover, police said.

The weekend's crimes follow 65 homicides last year in Cincinnati - the most killings in the city since 1987 - and 63 slayings in 2001.Most of the killings are drug-related, police say, and involve young black men, which in turn has prompted recently announced community efforts to quell the bloodshed.

The persistent violence prompted the West End Community Council president Sunday to announce he would hire private security guards - some of them armed - to augment Cincinnati police in patrolling the historic but crime-plagued neighborhood.

"We are sick and tired of the violence," said Dale Mallory. "We are not trying to replace the police, but we have to step it up. The police are stretched thin. The security guards' first action will be to call the police, but these guys also will be able to take action to protect us."

Joe Gulasy is equally disgusted at the lawlessness plaguing some city streets. The 51-year-old father of six was making a LaRosa's pizza delivery in Mount Auburn Saturday night when he narrowly avoided becoming a victim of homicide.

A gunman ran up to Mr. Gulasy in the 500 block of Channing Street at 9:10 p.m. as he was making a delivery and screamed at him to throw down his pizza bag.

Mr. Gulasy said he froze, his stomach plunged and he feared the worst.

The gunman leveled the pistol squarely at him and squeezed the trigger. There was a click, but the gun didn't fire.

Mr. Gulasy ran. The robber made off with the delivery bag - and the two pizzas inside, a meat-topper and a supreme.

"I can't imagine where everybody is getting all these guns," Mr. Gulasy said Sunday just before starting another LaRosa's shift in Corryville. "I have never seen anything like this. There's a prison mentality on the streets now. It doesn't make me feel very good about living in the city."

The year didn't start out quietly in Cincinnati: An undercover police officer with an elite drug unit was stabbed last week in the stomach as he left a gym. Hours later, a man allegedly shot at two different officers in Over-the-Rhine.

The first questionable death came Saturday about 7 p.m. when police found a man's body inside a green Ford Taurus parked outside the Bellevue House Apartments in the 2300 block of Ohio Avenue.

Then, just before 9 p.m. Saturday, Robert Eason of the West End was pronounced dead at University Hospital after police and firefighters responded to a report of an assault in the 1700 block of Linn Street.

Investigators did not say Sunday how the two men died and did not release suspect descriptions. But friends of Mr. Eason said he was beaten to death.

At the intersection of Green and Vine streets in Over-the-Rhine - almost the same spot where two uniformed officers were fired upon early Friday - a man was shot in the abdomen at 1:39 p.m. Sunday in a "robbery gone bad," according to police reports.

Just over an hour later, a 16-year-old boy was shot in the leg in the 6000 block of Lantana Avenue in College Hill. Four gunmen are wanted in connection with that attack, according to police reports.

About 7 p.m. Sunday, a man was shot in Over-the-Rhine and ran to the 1400 block of Elm Street before collapsing. An ambulance took that unidentified man to University Hospital, where his condition was not available.

In the next few weeks, a coalition of civil rights, religious and social service groups, known as "The Peace Down the Way Coalition," plans to hit the streets to talk with at-risk youths in an effort to curb black-on-black violence.

Meanwhile, Mr. Mallory, the West End council president, said security officers from Roselawn-based Elite Protective Services Inc. soon would begin patrolling West End neighborhoods.

Some of the security officers will be armed with guns and all will carry Mace, he said. The council hopes to use some of its city funding toward the effort, but also will raise money on its own to pay for the extra watch, Mr. Mallory said.

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com.

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