Hey y’all. I’ve had the past couple mornings off, so my morning news output has been slacking. But I’m back with a big bunch of stuff to tell you about. Here we go.
Much of the news today is about the police shooting death of Samuel Dubose. CityBeat has been following this incident from the beginning. You can find our story on Dubose and his death here. An investigation into Dubose's killing is already finished after just a couple days, but you and I can’t see the evidence yet. The Cincinnati Police Department has finished its probe into the shooting, but Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters has said he’ll hold much of that evidence, including multiple videos of the incident, not releasing it to the public despite public records requests from local media, including CityBeat. University of Cincinnati officials indicated a willingness to release those videos during a news conference yesterday, but Deters says making that evidence public would jeopardize the chances of a fair trial for the officer involved should charges be brought against him. CityBeat will continue to push for the release of the evidence in question.
Deters, who has been embroiled in recent controversy over his statements calling people his office prosecutes “soulless” and “thugs,” plans to wrap up his investigation sometime next week and present his findings to a grand jury. University of Cincinnati Police officer Ray Tensing shot and killed 43-year-old Dubose in Mount Auburn July 19 after a traffic stop initiated because Dubose didn’t have a front license plate. Dubose was driving on a suspended license. According to the official police line of events, Dubose struggled with Tensing over his car door and attempted to drive away. Tensing shot him at that point and then fell to the ground, sustaining minor injuries from Dubose’s car, officials say. Since that time, information has trickled out about the killing, though not nearly enough for Dubose’s family, friends and activists who have staged a number of protests demanding answers about the father of thirteen’s death. The next is scheduled for 11 a.m. today outside Deters’ office downtown.
• Meanwhile, the university is mulling whether its police force should join the city’s collaborative agreement, a federally enforced community-police relations plan put in place after the city’s civil unrest in 2001 over the police shooting death of unarmed Timothy Thomas. That and possibly other reforms are moves the city of Cincinnati supports. UC will review training for its law enforcement officers as a result of the shooting, officials say. The university and the city will also form a committee on community-police relations, which will include city and university officials as well as other police use of force experts like State Senator Cecil Thomas, a former police officer and one of many people who helped push the city’s 2001 agreement.
“We have learned over a long period of time — having made our own mistakes — a pullover related to a license plate should not, in the normal course of events, lead to lethal force,” Mayor John Cranley said at a joint news conference with UC President Santa Ono yesterday. “Therefore, reform is in order.”
The rest of the news today, in short order:
• An all-day tech conference is happening today in Cincy. NewCo Cincinnati features presentations from 50 big names in the local and national start-up and technology industries, including everything from breweries to Procter & Gamble. The unique part of the conference: Attendees go to the businesses, spending time touring their facilities and checking out where the magic happens. The conference is global in scale: 15 events are taking place in cities like New York City, Istanbul and Austin, Texas.
• Cincinnati’s own Graeter’s Ice Cream flavor Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip has been named one of the Top 5 flavors in America by the Food Network. Breaking news: It’s pretty good. I still evangelize for Aglemesis Bros. over Graeter’s, but I’m happy to see the other rad ice cream company in town get some national props.
• So a 19-year-old named Justin Buchannan jumped onto the field at yesterday’s Reds game against the Cubs, filmed himself trying to say hi to the players, jumped over a fence and escaped. That’s pretty epic. He totally made it all the way back to his home in Indiana, too, and probably would never have been caught except he tweeted his video and agreed to interviews on local news. But he says it was worth it and he’s kind of OK with whatever trouble he may be in. That’s the spirit.
• Gov. John Kasich on Tuesday finally officially announced he’s running for president. Want to know more about the GOP hopeful’s record? His long, often controversial policy experience when it comes to education is a good place to start, maybe. Here’s a pretty handy rundown of what Kasich has done for (or, depending on who you talk with, to) public education in Ohio.
• Meanwhile, did Kasich make enough of a splash with his announcement to get a much-needed boost to his national profile? Well, there were a bunch of articles in national media about how Kasich could be a contender if only he could get more attention nationally, which is kind of a weird way to frame giving him more national attention. But the gov kinda flopped on social media, which is where all political decisions are made these days. Kasich stirred up about 261,000 interactions of Facebook in the day following his announcement. Compare that to Donald Trump, another GOP presidential contender (and god help us, he’s the front runner in some polls). Trump’s announcement that he was running for president got 6.4 million interactions on the social media site. Another favorite, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, rustled up 1.6 million interactions. Advice for Kasich: Either get an outlandish hairpiece and make disparaging remarks about protesters and war heroes, or post a lot more cat videos.
