Melody Butts concedes she deserved a ticket for unthinkingly passing a stopped school bus on Rt. 40 east of Zanesville.

However, the nurse says she did not deserve the face full of Mace and night in jail that followed the arrival of a state trooper at her home later that day to write her up for the offense.

"She was treating me like a criminal for a traffic violation,’" Butts said of her May 28 arrest by Trooper Jennifer DeLong. "I don’t have a criminal record. It was very, very demeaning . . . a nightmare.’"

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Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Streicher is crediting that city's tougher stance on criminals who use guns in the commission of their crimes for slowing what was a record pace of homicides this year.

The program, known as Project Safe Neighborhoods, was created nearly two years ago in response to the city's most violent summer in decades.

Streicher says the homicide numbers, while only a modest improvement over last year, are "a tangible result" of the gun program.

While we agree that these "get tough on criminals" programs work (more to follow), it's hard to credit a program that's been in effect for two years, for a sudden, two-week decrease in homicides. Could there be a much-more likely, self-defense-related reason for the reprieve?

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