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People have stopped throwing bottles, setting fires, breaking windows and beating passersby. The problem was simple: End the riots and end the turmoil, right?
Wrong.
What the riots have really shown, and what people are starting to realize, is that Cincinnati has a problem much more complex than the shooting of an unarmed black man or alleged racial profiling by police. The sample of Cincinnati offered in easy-to-swallow bites on the national news gave only a hint of the bitter aftertaste left behind.
Mayor Charlie Luken has asked people to be patient while Cincinnati demonstrates its commitment to change. Perhaps a solution would be easier if African Americans hadn’t been asked for patience years before.
Robert Pace feels he has been patient long enough — 30 years, to be exact.
Pace was 11 years old when his father was killed in a gunfight with representatives of a bail bonding company. According to news articles about the 1971 incident, McKinley Pace had been convicted on charges of malicious destruction of property, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct resulting from a “flag burning, statue painting-splashing incident” at a protest in Cincinnati.
Pace had wanted to see a school renamed after a black activist.
A poignant front-page photograph in The Cincinnati Enquirer showed Robert Pace staring at his father as he lay bleeding, mortally wounded, on an Avondale street.
Pace, now 41, says his father’s body was left on the street for an hour.
“They left him there to send a message to the community that if you stand up against us, you’re going to pay the price,” Pace says.
As a child, Pace constantly encountered questions from other children about the newspaper photo of his dead father. Today, as chairman of the Black Youth Movement and co-chair of the Political Action Committee of the Cincinnati Black United Front, he wants to ensure all people are treated fairly.
“I just felt it was my duty to fight against injustice by any race against any people,” he says.
In the three decades since his father’s death, problems of race relations in Cincinnati have become even worse, according to Pace.
Although Pace participated in demonstrations after the fatal police shooting of Timothy Thomas (“Race Meets Death,” issue of April 19-25), he believes the answer is business investment in black communities, better programs in public schools, drug treatment for addicts and mentoring of youth by black businesspeople.
“Quit driving past these people every day and looking at them and saying they’re no good when you probably came from the same background yourself,” he says to black business leaders.
Pace says if Cincinnati would invest in proper police practices and drug treatment for those who need it, everybody would come out a winner. But the approach the police department takes in the inner city now is one that leads to a dead end, he says.
“People who live in the inner city are at the lowest end of the ladder and they get the harshest treatment by police,” Pace says. “If the police don’t respect them, why should they respect the police?”
To police, everyone’s a protester
Cincinnati Police arrested 623 people for curfew violations. Atop many of the arrest reports for curfew violations, the police division added the word “protester.” But many say they were simply walking down the street when they were arrested, not even near a protest.
Cincinnati Police Lt. Ray Ruberg says the word “protester” was written on the reports to assist with requests for public records. He acknowledges the word “curfew” would have been less confusing.
Tracy Adkins, 19, of Walnut Hills was walking with her friend at about 10 p.m. April 12 to buy some pop for her grandmother. Two women, one white and one black, walked past her and were not arrested by police, according to Adkins. But she and her friend were both charged with curfew violations.
“I don’t understand how you let two people walk past and arrest us,” Adkins says. The pair were held overnight at the Hamilton County Justice Center.
“They didn’t even let me use the phone and call my mom or nothing,” she says. “Man, that’s cold.”
Darius Crew, charged April 11 with failure to disperse and disorderly conduct, had marched downtown from Bond Hill with a group of people. Friends of Crew say he was holding a sign when police started shooting rubber bullets into the crowd. Crew, a friend of Roger Owensby — killed in police custody in November — allegedly lay down on the ground to avoid the bullets.
Erik Marsh, 20, who was with Crew, was also arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and failure to disperse. Marsh says he was just standing on Vine Street when, without warning, police started firing rubber bullets into the crowd.
“Everybody was walking with their hands up and then we cut over to the parking lot — and they just started shooting,” Marsh says.
Marsh says he, too, lay on the ground to avoid the bullets and then was arrested. He says he spent two nights in jail.
Officer Steven Roach killed Thomas while he was running from police April 7. Yet ironically Ruberg says the charges against Crew and Marsh — for not running from police — are valid.
“If we give them an order to disperse, and they would lay down, that would bring the disorderly conduct charge,” Ruberg says.
In “normal” situations, Ruberg says, police issue a verbal warning before firing into a crowd. In a riot, however, there could be some variations. Ruberg says it is up to a squad commander at the scene to determine whether to use force.
Rose Washington, 42, arrested for a curfew violation April 13, says when she was arrested she questioned why she was being labeled a protester. She says she was standing on the street near a friend’s house when she was arrested for being out after 8 p.m.
“We asked them and said, ‘We ain’t protesting,’ ” Washington says. “I really absolutely don’t think they were trying to help.”
Ruby Stewart’s son Kevin was also arrested for a curfew violation; his arrest report, too, has “protester” written at the top. Stewart says her son has a disability and probably didn’t understand why he was arrested or the fact that he was even breaking curfew.
He wasn’t protesting but rather walking home from a friend’s house when he was arrested, Stewart says.
Stewart says groups of people were brought into the courtroom four or five at a time when her son appeared. She was trying to let the court know of her son’s disability, but was unable to do so. He pled no contest to the charges.
“That’s what the lawyers were telling them to do,” Washington says.
Fighting back
Five people last week filed a civil rights suit against the city of Cincinnati and unnamed police officers over officers’ conduct during the upheaval.
Mary Ann Meredith, 51, one of the plaintiffs, describes herself as “a poor old lady that Cincinnati Police decided to shoot in the head.”
With her head partially shaved, exposing the gash that left her needing 20 stitches, Meredith shows the pieces of lead removed from her skull.
According to the suit, Meredith was participating in an April 10 protest against Thomas’ death. Near Washington Park in Over-the-Rhine, she says, a police officer approached her and cocked his rifle.
“What are you going to do,” Meredith asked, “shoot me?”
The officer allegedly shot Meredith in the head with a “beanbag.” A “beanbag” consists of metal pellets smaller than a ball bearing that are enclosed in a cloth bag, which is inserted into one end of a shell casing and fired from a shotgun.
“They stay in the cloth bag,” Ruberg says. “They’re not meant to explode.”
Rubber bullets, he says, have more firing accuracy at certain ranges than beanbags. They are shot from a 40-millimeter weapon equipped with a laser sight.
“The 40-millimeter round is like getting hit with a 90-mile-per-hour fast ball,” Ruberg says. “It can knock you right down.”
Robert Newman, attorney for the plaintiffs, says his goal is to protect the right to peacefully protest.
“This is the way poor people can make political statements,” Newman says.
The five people who filed suit last week will not be the last to come forward, according to Newman.
“We anticipate there may be other individuals who step forward and want to fight back,” he says.
The suit alleges that on the afternoon of April 10, Peter Shriner, a 19-year-old volunteer housing rehabber in Over-the-Rhine, was walking north on Race Street near Findlay Market when police allegedly shot into a crowd without warning. Shriner was allegedly struck over the left eye with a “beanbag” by police while peacefully protesting.
“It was a crowd that was peaceful at that point,” Shriner says.
Shriner required 13 stitches to close his wound.
Courtney Simpson says that in the early morning hours of April 12 he was sitting in his automobile with his brother, his cousin and a dog when, without warning, an officer “thrust a can of Mace into the car and maced everyone in the car.” Then, the suit says, an officer opened the car door and threw Simpson onto the ground, hitting him with a hard object and causing a wound to his head.
The next day Simpson was leaving a store at the corner of Vine and 13th streets, he says, when a police officer shot him in the leg with a “beanbag.”
According to the suit, Jana Douglass and a group of friends protesting Thomas’ death were searched by police while walking up Race Street. Officers allegedly aimed guns at the group, took their identification cards and confiscated $86 in cash — which they say wasn’t returned. The suit states Douglass and her friends were held for one and a half hours and because of this were unable to attend Thomas’ funeral march.
Tristan Everson, 19, was with Douglass during the alleged detainment at Race and Seventh streets. He was handcuffed for 40 minutes, he says, until his hands turned blue. The suit also states Police Chief Thomas Streicher appeared at the beginning of the detention, consulting with officers and witnessing the detention.
Ruberg says the police department never comments on lawsuits, referring questions to the city solicitor’s office. The solicitor’s office said Friday it had not seen the suit. ©People have stopped throwing bottles, setting fires, breaking windows and beating passersby. The problem was simple: End the riots and end the turmoil, right?
Wrong.
What the riots have really shown, and what people are starting to realize, is that Cincinnati has a problem much more complex than the shooting of an unarmed black man or alleged racial profiling by police. The sample of Cincinnati offered in easy-to-swallow bites on the national news gave only a hint of the bitter aftertaste left behind.
Mayor Charlie Luken has asked people to be patient while Cincinnati demonstrates its commitment to change. Perhaps a solution would be easier if African Americans hadn’t been asked for patience years before.
Robert Pace feels he has been patient long enough — 30 years, to be exact.
Pace was 11 years old when his father was killed in a gunfight with representatives of a bail bonding company. According to news articles about the 1971 incident, McKinley Pace had been convicted on charges of malicious destruction of property, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct resulting from a “flag burning, statue painting-splashing incident” at a protest in Cincinnati. Pace had wanted to see a school renamed after a black activist.
A poignant front-page photograph in The Cincinnati Enquirer showed Robert Pace staring at his father as he lay bleeding, mortally wounded, on an Avondale street.
Pace, now 41, says his father’s body was left on the street for an hour.
“They left him there to send a message to the community that if you stand up against us, you’re going to pay the price,” Pace says.
As a child, Pace constantly encountered questions from other children about the newspaper photo of his dead father. Today, as chairman of the Black Youth Movement and co-chair of the Political Action Committee of the Cincinnati Black United Front, he wants to ensure all people are treated fairly.
“I just felt it was my duty to fight against injustice by any race against any people,” he says.
In the three decades since his father’s death, problems of race relations in Cincinnati have become even worse, according to Pace.
Although Pace participated in demonstrations after the fatal police shooting of Timothy Thomas (“Race Meets Death,” issue of April 19-25), he believes the answer is business investment in black communities, better programs in public schools, drug treatment for addicts and mentoring of youth by black businesspeople.
“Quit driving past these people every day and looking at them and saying they’re no good when you probably came from the same background yourself,” he says to black business leaders.
Pace says if Cincinnati would invest in proper police practices and drug treatment for those who need it, everybody would come out a winner. But the approach the police department takes in the inner city now is one that leads to a dead end, he says.
“People who live in the inner city are at the lowest end of the ladder and they get the harshest treatment by police,” Pace says. “If the police don’t respect them, why should they respect the police?”
To police, everyone’s a protester
Cincinnati Police arrested 623 people for curfew violations. Atop many of the arrest reports for curfew violations, the police division added the word “protester.” But many say they were simply walking down the street when they were arrested, not even near a protest.
Cincinnati Police Lt. Ray Ruberg says the word “protester” was written on the reports to assist with requests for public records. He acknowledges the word “curfew” would have been less confusing.
Tracy Adkins, 19, of Walnut Hills was walking with her friend at about 10 p.m. April 12 to buy some pop for her grandmother. Two women, one white and one black, walked past her and were not arrested by police, according to Adkins. But she and her friend were both charged with curfew violations.
“I don’t understand how you let two people walk past and arrest us,” Adkins says. The pair were held overnight at the Hamilton County Justice Center.
“They didn’t even let me use the phone and call my mom or nothing,” she says. “Man, that’s cold.”
Darius Crew, charged April 11 with failure to disperse and disorderly conduct, had marched downtown from Bond Hill with a group of people. Friends of Crew say he was holding a sign when police started shooting rubber bullets into the crowd. Crew, a friend of Roger Owensby — killed in police custody in November — allegedly lay down on the ground to avoid the bullets.
Erik Marsh, 20, who was with Crew, was also arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and failure to disperse. Marsh says he was just standing on Vine Street when, without warning, police started firing rubber bullets into the crowd.
“Everybody was walking with their hands up and then we cut over to the parking lot — and they just started shooting,” Marsh says.
Marsh says he, too, lay on the ground to avoid the bullets and then was arrested. He says he spent two nights in jail.
Officer Steven Roach killed Thomas while he was running from police April 7. Yet ironically Ruberg says the charges against Crew and Marsh — for not running from police — are valid.
“If we give them an order to disperse, and they would lay down, that would bring the disorderly conduct charge,” Ruberg says.
In “normal” situations, Ruberg says, police issue a verbal warning before firing into a crowd. In a riot, however, there could be some variations. Ruberg says it is up to a squad commander at the scene to determine whether to use force.
Rose Washington, 42, arrested for a curfew violation April 13, says when she was arrested she questioned why she was being labeled a protester. She says she was standing on the street near a friend’s house when she was arrested for being out after 8 p.m.
“We asked them and said, ‘We ain’t protesting,’ ” Washington says. “I really absolutely don’t think they were trying to help.”
Ruby Stewart’s son Kevin was also arrested for a curfew violation; his arrest report, too, has “protester” written at the top. Stewart says her son has a disability and probably didn’t understand why he was arrested or the fact that he was even breaking curfew.
He wasn’t protesting but rather walking home from a friend’s house when he was arrested, Stewart says.
Stewart says groups of people were brought into the courtroom four or five at a time when her son appeared. She was trying to let the court know of her son’s disability, but was unable to do so. He pled no contest to the charges.
“That’s what the lawyers were telling them to do,” Washington says.
Fighting back
Five people last week filed a civil rights suit against the city of Cincinnati and unnamed police officers over officers’ conduct during the upheaval.
Mary Ann Meredith, 51, one of the plaintiffs, describes herself as “a poor old lady that Cincinnati Police decided to shoot in the head.”
With her head partially shaved, exposing the gash that left her needing 20 stitches, Meredith shows the pieces of lead removed from her skull.
According to the suit, Meredith was participating in an April 10 protest against Thomas’ death. Near Washington Park in Over-the-Rhine, she says, a police officer approached her and cocked his rifle.
“What are you going to do,” Meredith asked, “shoot me?”
The officer allegedly shot Meredith in the head with a “beanbag.” A “beanbag” consists of metal pellets smaller than a ball bearing that are enclosed in a cloth bag, which is inserted into one end of a shell casing and fired from a shotgun.
“They stay in the cloth bag,” Ruberg says. “They’re not meant to explode.”
Rubber bullets, he says, have more firing accuracy at certain ranges than beanbags. They are shot from a 40-millimeter weapon equipped with a laser sight.
“The 40-millimeter round is like getting hit with a 90-mile-per-hour fast ball,” Ruberg says. “It can knock you right down.”
Robert Newman, attorney for the plaintiffs, says his goal is to protect the right to peacefully protest.
“This is the way poor people can make political statements,” Newman says.
The five people who filed suit last week will not be the last to come forward, according to Newman.
“We anticipate there may be other individuals who step forward and want to fight back,” he says.
The suit alleges that on the afternoon of April 10, Peter Shriner, a 19-year-old volunteer housing rehabber in Over-the-Rhine, was walking north on Race Street near Findlay Market when police allegedly shot into a crowd without warning. Shriner was allegedly struck over the left eye with a “beanbag” by police while peacefully protesting.
“It was a crowd that was peaceful at that point,” Shriner says.
Shriner required 13 stitches to close his wound.
Courtney Simpson says that in the early morning hours of April 12 he was sitting in his automobile with his brother, his cousin and a dog when, without warning, an officer “thrust a can of Mace into the car and maced everyone in the car.” Then, the suit says, an officer opened the car door and threw Simpson onto the ground, hitting him with a hard object and causing a wound to his head.
The next day Simpson was leaving a store at the corner of Vine and 13th streets, he says, when a police officer shot him in the leg with a “beanbag.”
According to the suit, Jana Douglass and a group of friends protesting Thomas’ death were searched by police while walking up Race Street. Officers allegedly aimed guns at the group, took their identification cards and confiscated $86 in cash — which they say wasn’t returned. The suit states Douglass and her friends were held for one and a half hours and because of this were unable to attend Thomas’ funeral march.
Tristan Everson, 19, was with Douglass during the alleged detainment at Race and Seventh streets. He was handcuffed for 40 minutes, he says, until his hands turned blue. The suit also states Police Chief Thomas Streicher appeared at the beginning of the detention, consulting with officers and witnessing the detention.
Ruberg says the police department never comments on lawsuits, referring questions to the city solicitor’s office. The solicitor’s office said Friday it had not seen the suit. ©
This article appears in Apr 25 – May 1, 2001.