
On November 28, 2016, a terrorist vehicle-ramming and stabbing attack occurred at 9:52 a.m. EST at Ohio State University's Watts Hall in Columbus, Ohio. The attacker, Somali refugee Abdul Razak Ali Artan, was shot and killed by the first responding OSU police officer, and 13 people were hospitalized for injuries.

On April 20, 2021, Ma'Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old black girl, was fatally shot by police officer Nicholas Reardon in southeast Columbus, Ohio. Body camera and security camera footage released after the shooting shows Bryant brandishing a knife and charging two women consecutively, leading up to the moment Officer Reardon fired four shots; Bryant was struck at least once. Bryant immediately collapsed and was unresponsive. Reardon and other officers on the scene administered first aid. Bryant was transported to the hospital in critical condition where she was later pronounced dead. The case was investigated by state authorities and then referred to local authorities. Reactions from the public included support of the actions of the officer and protests against the killing.

On February 27, 2012, six students were shot at Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio, resulting in the deaths of three of them. Witnesses said that the shooter had a personal rivalry with one of his victims. Two other wounded students were also hospitalized, one of whom sustained several serious injuries that have resulted in permanent paralysis. The fifth student suffered a minor injury, and the sixth a superficial wound.

In the early morning hours of March 26, 2017, a shootout occurred at the Cameo nightclub in southeastern Cincinnati, Ohio. One person was killed and 16 others were injured. Two suspects were arrested on March 30, though police continued to search for more people involved. One of the suspects, who was among those injured, later died of his injuries on April 4.

On December 8, 2004, four people were murdered and three others were wounded in a mass shooting at the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Heavy metal musician "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, the main target of the attack, was on stage with his band Damageplan when the shooting took place. The perpetrator, 25-year-old Nathan Gale, was shot and killed by police officer James Niggemeyer, as Gale held a wounded victim hostage.

On August 7, 2011, a mass shooting occurred in Copley Township, Summit County, Ohio, by 51-year-old Michael E. Hance. Seven people were shot dead before the gunman was shot and killed by Copley police officer Ben Campbell.

The shooting of John Crawford III occurred on August 5, 2014. Crawford was a 22-year-old African-American man shot and killed by a police officer in a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio, near Dayton, while he was holding a BB gun that was for sale in the store. The shooting was captured on surveillance video and led to protests from groups including the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Darrell Lance Abbott, best known by his stage name Dimebag Darrell, was an American musician and songwriter. He was the guitarist of the heavy metal bands Pantera and Damageplan, both of which he co-founded alongside his brother Vinnie Paul.

On August 4, 2019, 24-year-old Connor Betts shot and killed nine people and injured 17 others near the entrance of the Ned Peppers Bar in the Oregon District of Dayton, Ohio. Betts was fatally shot by responding police officers 32 seconds after the first shots were fired. A total of 27 people were taken to area hospitals.

Luscious "Luke" Easter was a professional baseball player in Major League Baseball and the Negro leagues. He batted left-handed, threw right-handed, was 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m), and weighed 240 lb.

Charles Arthur Floyd, nicknamed Pretty Boy Floyd, was an American bank robber. He operated in the West and Central states, and his criminal exploits gained widespread press coverage in the 1930s. He was seen positively by the public because it was believed that during robberies he burned mortgage documents, freeing many people from their debts. He was pursued and killed by a group of Bureau of Investigation (BOI) agents led by Melvin Purvis. Historians have speculated as to which officers were at the event, but accounts document that local officers Robert "Pete" Pyle and George Curran were present at his fatal shooting and also at his embalming. Floyd has continued to be a familiar figure in American popular culture, sometimes seen as notorious, other times portrayed as a tragic figure, even a victim of the hard times of the Great Depression in the United States.

On December 8, 2004, four people were murdered and three others were wounded in a mass shooting at the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Heavy metal musician "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, the main target of the attack, was on stage with his band Damageplan when the shooting took place. The perpetrator, 25-year-old Nathan Gale, was shot and killed by police officer James Niggemeyer, as Gale held a wounded victim hostage.

On May 28, 2016, a three-year-old boy climbed into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden where he was grabbed and dragged by Harambe, a 17-year-old western lowland gorilla. Fearing for the boy's life, a zoo worker shot and killed Harambe. The incident was recorded on video and received broad international coverage and commentary, including controversy over the choice to use lethal force. A number of primatologists and conservationists wrote later that the zoo had no other choice under the circumstances, and that it highlighted the danger of zoo animals near humans and the need for better standards of care.

Eric Joering and Anthony "Tony" Morelli were police officers who were murdered on February 10, 2018, in Westerville, Ohio after responding to a domestic violence incident. Joering, 39, and Morelli, 54, were shot and killed by Quentin Smith, who had punched and choked his wife, leading to her making a 9-1-1 hangup call. When the police officers arrived, Smith shot Joering three times in both of his arms and in his head. Morelli was shot once in the chest with the bullet going through his heart and lungs.

The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre, were the killings of four and wounding of nine other unarmed Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970 in Kent, Ohio, 40 miles south of Cleveland. The killings took place during a peace rally opposing the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into neutral Cambodia by United States military forces as well as protesting the National Guard presence on campus. The incident marked the first time that a student had been killed in an anti-war gathering in United States history.

Allison Beth Krause was an American honor student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, when she was killed by soldiers of the Ohio Army National Guard in the Kent State shootings, while protesting against the invasion of Cambodia and the presence of the National Guard on the Kent State campus. National Guardsmen opened fire on a group of unarmed students, killing four of them, at an average distance of about 345 ft (106 m). Krause was shot in the left side of her chest at about 330 feet (101 m), from which she received a fatal wound. A subsequent autopsy found that a single rifle bullet entered and exited her upper left arm, and then entered the left side of her chest, fragmenting on impact and causing massive internal trauma. She died from her wounds later the same day.

Joseph Lonardo, also known as "Big Joe", was a Sicilian emigrant to the United States who became the first crime boss of the Cleveland crime family, which he structured from a competing number of organized crime gangs. When national Prohibition began in 1920, Lonardo became a dealer in corn sugar, an essential ingredient in the manufacture of corn whiskey. Lonardo became a "sugar baron" by driving other legitimate corn sugar merchants out of business, encouraging home distillation, and using intimidation, murder, and theft to eliminate or drive his criminal competitors out of business.

Charles Omer Makley, also known as Charles McGray and Fat Charles, was an American criminal and bank robber active in the early 20th century, most notably as a criminal associate of John Dillinger.

Jeffrey Glenn Miller was an American student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, who was killed by the Ohio Army National Guard in the Kent State shootings. He had been protesting against the invasion of Cambodia and the presence of the National Guard on the Kent State campus. National Guardsmen opened fire on a group of unarmed students, killing Miller and three others.

On November 22, 2014, Tamir E. Rice, a 12-year-old African-American boy, was killed in Cleveland, Ohio, by Timothy Loehmann, a 26-year-old white police officer. Rice was carrying a replica toy gun; Loehmann shot him almost immediately after arriving on the scene. Two officers, Loehmann and 46-year-old Frank Garmback, were responding to a police dispatch call regarding a male who had a gun. A caller reported that a male was pointing "a pistol" at random people at the Cudell Recreation Center, a park in the City of Cleveland's Public Works Department. At the beginning of the call and again in the middle, he says of the pistol "it's probably fake." Toward the end of the two-minute call, the caller states that "he is probably a juvenile", but this information was not relayed to officers Loehmann and Garmback on the initial dispatch.

Sandra Lee "Sandy" Scheuer was a student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, when she was killed by Ohio National Guardsmen in the Kent State shootings.

Wallace "Bud" Smith was a world lightweight boxing champion in 1955, who also competed in the 1948 Olympic Games. His trainer was John Joiner of Cincinnati, and his manager was Vic Marsillo. Smith was murdered in 1973.

Salvatore Todaro, also known as "Black Sam" and "Sam Todaro", was a Sicilian emigrant to the United States who became the second boss of the Cleveland crime family. A friend and criminal associate of rising organized crime figure Joseph Lonardo, he rose swiftly in the Mayfield Road Mob and became manager of Lonardo's legitimate corn sugar and criminal corn whiskey operations. He was a well-recognized figure in organized crime circles, and became briefly involved with the Buffalo crime family.

The murder of Reagan Tokes occurred on the night of February 8, 2017, in the Scioto Grove Metro Park in Grove City, Ohio. Tokes, a twenty-one-year-old student at Ohio State University, was abducted while leaving her job in Columbus’s downtown by Brian Golsby. Golsby robbed and raped Tokes, and forced her to drive to the Scioto Grove Metro Park. There, he forced her to strip naked and marched her into a field where he shot her twice in the head.

Roger Troutman, also known mononymously as Roger, was an American singer, composer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and the founder of the band Zapp who helped spearhead the funk movement and heavily influenced West Coast hip hop due to the scene's heavy sampling of his music over the years. Troutman was well known for his use of the talk box, a device that is connected to an instrument to create different vocal effects. Roger used a custom-made talkbox—the Electro Harmonix "Golden Throat"—through a Moog Minimoog and later in his career a Yamaha DX100 FM synthesizer. As both band leader of Zapp and in his subsequent solo releases, he scored a bevy of funk and R&B hits throughout the 1980s and regularly collaborated with hip hop artists in the 1990s.

Clement Laird Vallandigham was an American politician and leader of the Copperhead faction of anti-war Democrats during the American Civil War. He served two terms for Ohio's 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. In 1863, he was convicted at an Army court martial of opposing the war, and exiled to the Confederacy. He ran for governor of Ohio in 1863 from exile in Canada, but was defeated. Vallandigham died in 1871 in Lebanon, Ohio, after accidentally shooting himself in the abdomen with a pistol, while representing a defendant in a murder case for killing a man in a barroom brawl in Hamilton.

Stanisława Walasiewicz, also known as Stefania Walasiewicz, and Stella Walsh, was a Polish-American track and field athlete, who became a women's Olympic champion in the 100 metres. Born in Poland and raised in the United States, she became an American citizen in 1947.

West Jefferson is a village in Madison County, Ohio, United States. The population was 4,222 at the 2010 census. Located along U.S. Route 40, the village has a fairly close relationship with the surrounding township, which include various out-of-corporation-limit neighborhoods. The village has a "Commerce Park" at its western edge which include Target and Amazon Distribution Centers, a Krazy Glue factory, and Jefferson Industries.