August 26, 2001
TU students get a different view of Cincinnati riots
By Cathy Willoughby
Staff Writer
The daytime hours saw protesters line the streets of Cincinnati. Nighttime brought out the "darker'' element during four days in April.
Tom Streicher, chief of the city's police department, shared with Tiffin University master's in Criminal Justice students Saturday afternoon what occurred during the spring riots.
The situation that sparked the sequence of protest, broken windows, looting, fires set and shots fired randomly was the death of a young black man during a police chase.
Streicher showed a 12 minute video of media broadcasts that illustrated the events. It began with the shooting of 19 year old Timothy Thomas at 2:15 a.m. April 7, in the "Over the Rhine'' area of downtown Cincinnati. He was shot after being pursued by a police officer who recognized him and knew that Thomas had 14 outstanding warrants. Another officer who joined in the chase, Stephen Roach, was chasing Thomas around the side of a building to a darkened garage area. When Thomas appeared, Roach discharged his gun, hitting Thomas in the chest, killing him.
Streicher said that while they were determining what happened at the scene, tension was brewing. At a city council committee meeting, people from the "Over the Rhine'' community flooded council chambers, demanding to get answers to questions they had.
Due to the shooting being caught on police video, he said that inconsistencies had been found between Roach's statement and the video during the internal police department investigation.
"The next step was to play the film for him (Roach), and say to him, 'Can you explain the discrepancy,''' Streicher told the TU students. "Nobody but the police have the authority to inflict deadly force on a citizen,'' he added. "So we need to get this information out to people as quickly as possible. During the meeting Monday, people were there demanding a lot, including what the evidence was. All we could say is that the officer said he fired a shot because he had perceived a threat from Thomas.''
"If we had released the information that we had it on film, the investigation would be compromised,'' he added.
Roach, upon seeing the film, broke down and made a different statement. Streicher said a trial date is set for three weeks from now for Roach in Hamilton County Municipal Court on negligent homicide and obstruction of official business.
During Monday evening's city council meeting, people felt their questions were not being answered. After the meeting, people descended on the District One police administration building, where several windows were broken out. By Tuesday, the situation changed.
"On Tuesday afternoon, there were people out there who had legitimate questions, and they were very angry,'' Streicher said. "And that's an appropriate response for people. As the night time started to come, that complexion started to change.''
As the sun went down, the criminal element came out into the night. The "Over the Rhine '' area was hardest hit, yet the rioting, looting and fires hit other areas surrounding downtown Cincinnati.
Police responded by rearranging the department to enact their civil disturbance plans, calling in the county sheriff's department and the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
Police reacted in full riot gear, plying those who were causing a disturbance with "bean bag'' bullets. Streicher went over some of the responses the department enacted during the riots.
"The mounted patrol unit is incredible at steering a crowd,'' Streicher said of the officers on horseback. "People respect horses. Wherever they were, people had respect for that horse and they moved away. Horses are astounding at the work they do.''
The rioters would "mask up,'' wearing red or blue bandanas, associating them with the gang element. "These people were armed or associated with those with arms,'' Streicher said. "These people were hell bent on committing crimes. They moved in with those who had legitimate protests. People took advantage of those who were there for legitimate reasons.''
As night fell, fires sprung up. "There were 175 fires in two nights in that area,'' Streicher said. "We had police escorts go in with the fire units, they needed to be escorted by two police cars before they would respond to a call.''
On Thursday, the mayor imposed a curfew from 8 p.m. until the early morning hours. Surprisingly, Streicher said, the curfew worked.
Since the riots, Streicher said the department has been redirected from their purpose to dealing with the riot aftermath.
Several action plans have been out in place to determine what happened, and prevent something similar in the future. One of the groups, Community Action Now, or CAN, involves influential African-American city leaders to look at social issues that lead to the origins of crime and poverty.
Streicher said that internally the department is looking at best practices, and that the Federal lawsuit against them has been halted.
"There has been a tremendous decrease in the amount of activity,'' he said. "It seems that we have stopped working in the face of controversy.''
The first response was that several weeks after the riots, police officers were still suffering from the complete exhaustion after working 12 to 18 hours a day.
"The focus of criticism is the cops,'' he said. "They walked into the mouth of the dragon. Faced with criticism, their reaction is that they are fed up with it, and they start to shut down.''
Since April, crime statistics in the city have risen dramatically. Murders are up 47 percent, robbery up 37.7 percent and auto thefts up 47 percent. "There have been 106 shootings since April 6,'' Streicher said. "Fourteen shootings in a seven day period. There were 104 black on black crimes.''
"When public scrutiny and criticism is heavy, it is easy to just get in the car and not see anything,'' he added.
To try to turn things around, Streicher said the department announced the creation of a new Violent Crimes Task Force.
"The police really do want to make a difference,'' he said. "They don't want the criminals to take over. They are facing peer pressure. They want to go back to work, but who wants to be the first one.''
Streicher said that 70 police officers were hand picked for the task force, which was initiated July 25. Statistics from the unit through August 23 show 588 arrests, 210 for adult felonies and 282 misdemeanors.
"The task force was needed,'' he said. "The agency needed that to be re-energized.''
He suggested to the TU students that community initiatives and good community relations were invaluable to preventing such an event in their own areas.