CINCINNATI — Cincinnati police are searching for the person who killed a 24-year-old father in West Price Hill Monday night.
"He was looking forward to his child being born in eight weeks," said Natasha, Anthony Howard Jr.'s mother. "Whoever did this to my child please turn (yourself) in. I don't want no retaliation. All I want is peace and everybody to put the guns down."
Howard lived with family on Harris Avenue. His pregnant girlfriend is due to have his first son in about two months, relatives said.
At around 8:30 p.m. Monday, gunfire wounded Howard, police said. Officers found him on the 900 block of Harris Avenue with injuries to his upper and lower torso. Investigators found no other victims and no damage to any homes.
"It seemed like it was a very close thing," Cincinnati Police Capt. Joe Richardson said Monday night.
Howard's mom, a nursing assistant, knew nothing until her phone rang at work. Within five minutes, she was at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center where she spoke with her son's surgeons.
"They said he had passed," Natasha said. "They brought him back to life and he was in surgery. I didn't hear anything else until I got the news that he didn't make it."
Natasha last spoke with her son Saturday and said she did not know what led to the shooting. However, Natasha insists her son had no known enemies and a "heart of gold."
Howard was a mechanic and a certified nursing assistant, she said. He took the nursing assistant job more than a year ago during the COVID-19 pandemic to help people.
Now, there is widespread pain in his family.
"My granddaughter is very attached to him and I don't know what we're going to do because she'll never see him again," Natasha said. "I'm just asking for strength and I'm asking for everyone to put the guns down."
Anyone with information about this homicide should call CPD at 513-765-1212 or CrimeStoppers at 513-352-3040.
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