Terrence Woods

A man is found dead in an alley near Washington Terrace by authorities responding to a report of 'shots fired'
On a cold winter afternoon in Cincinnati, Ohio, the body of 23-year-old Terrence Lamont Woods, a Black man, was discovered, marking the beginning of a homicide investigation that would later reveal troubling details about the city's emergency response system. His life was cut short by a single gunshot on Thursday, January 12, 2017, in a place layered with a century of the city's history.

Terrence was found in an alley at the Washington Terrace housing project in the Walnut Hills neighborhood. The complex, a series of row houses facing Interstate 71 just off Kerper Avenue, was built around 1915 by philanthropist Jacob G. Schmidlapp to provide better housing for low-income Black families. By 2017, however, the historic property was owned by the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority and stood abandoned and unoccupied, its silence broken that day by violence.

The events that led to the discovery of Terrence’s body began with a 911 call from a construction worker on I-71. The witness reported seeing two cars pull up in front of 32 Washington Terrace. Two individuals got out and went behind the buildings. A short time later, the witness heard a gunshot and saw one person run back to a vehicle and flee the scene. However, what followed was a series of critical failures in the city's emergency response.

An internal memo written on January 21, 2017, by then-Executive Police Chief David Bailey to the police chief, revealed "serious service issues" in every aspect of the response. The memo, later obtained by news media, detailed how the Emergency Communications Section struggled to enter the information into the dispatch system in a timely manner, could not easily determine the correct location, and did not accurately code the call. When officers finally arrived, they did not properly investigate the scene or attempt to speak with the person who called 911. As a result, it took law enforcement over an hour to locate Terrence after the initial report. Chief Bailey wrote that had the officers investigated properly, "they would have easily located the victim who had just been shot."

Police officially found Terrence around 2:30 p.m., though some reports place the time closer to 3:30 p.m. He was pronounced dead at the scene from a gunshot wound. The Cincinnati Police Department's Homicide Unit launched an investigation, closing off the road and combing through the abandoned property for evidence until after 6 p.m. that evening. Investigators found no other crime scenes connected to the killing, and no information about potential suspects was released to the public.

In the years since Terrence Woods was killed, his case has grown cold. No arrests have been made, and no suspects have been publicly identified. The internal memo about the flawed response to his murder was later highlighted in 2018 during the investigation into the death of Kyle Plush, a teenager who died after 911 dispatchers and police failed to locate him while he was trapped in his vehicle. Two officers involved in the initial response to the Terrence Woods scene were reportedly verbally counseled.

As of July 2017, Terrence's death was one of 32 homicides of Black victims in Cincinnati that year. His case remains an open and unsolved investigation. Authorities urge anyone with information about the shooting death of Terrence Woods to contact the Cincinnati Police Department's Homicide Unit or call Crime Stoppers at 513-352-3040.