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The death of Angela Leisure's son also marked the birth of an activist. A year after Timothy Thomas, 19, fell dead of a police gunshot in Over-the-Rhine, his mother is leaving behind the role of victim and taking on the role of leader. Leisure is the keynote speaker this Sunday for the March for Justice, a mass rally against violence and racism in the Cincinnati Police Department.
On April 3 Leisure held a press conference in her new role as board chair of the Three Square Music Foundation. Two weeks ago she made headlines by lending support to the police-community relations collaborative working to settle a lawsuit over racial profiling.
Leisure understands the anniversary of her son's death has meaning beyond his family.
"I believe the city is really on pins and needles because April 7 is coming pretty quick," she says.
'I need some answers'
Leisure recently returned to the scene of the event that first thrust her into public attention, a meeting of city council's Law and Public Safety Committee. She was present for Police Chief Tom Streicher's report March 19 on the internal investigation of her son's death.
It was in pursuit of an explanation that Leisure attended a meeting before the same committee April 9, 2001 (see A Death Too Far issue of April 12-18, 2001), two days after Officer Stephen Roach shot Thomas.
In the more recent meeting, Streicher told the committee Roach should not have had his finger on the trigger of his gun when he chased Thomas. Streicher also confirmed what many had already suspected — at least one of Roach's statements to investigators was a lie.
After the meeting, Leisure said she is still looking for answers, and she's growing impatient. City officials like to use Leisure's calls for peace, but have yet to address her questions, she says.
"I feel like I have done more to promote healing than the city — and they took my child from me," she says. "They're using me as a shield, but I'm tired. I need some answers."
With the information Streicher revealed two weeks ago, how did Roach win acquittal in Hamilton County Municipal Court on charges of negligent homicide and obstructing official business?
Leisure criticizes Judge Ralph E. Winkler for defending Roach's actions.
"Why did Judge Winkler put the blame for my son's death on my son?" she says.
Leisure believes the truth seems more distant now than when she first approached the Law and Public Safety Committee.
"It becomes a big puzzle and then people start stealing your pieces," she says.
Despite her criticism of the city, Leisure has been an essential force in easing tensions. When protests over her son's death turned violent, she called for calm. Lately she has been talking to neighbors, especially in Over-the-Rhine, walking the community on a daily basis.
"The tension is increasing, so that means I increase my efforts to keep peace," she says.
After the March 19 meeting, when Leisure announced her support for the police-community relations collaborative, Mayor Charlie Luken again acknowledged her help.
"Mrs. Leisure is a voice for justice, healing and non-violence," he said. "Her emphasis has been to improve police-community relations in hopes that what happened to her son will not repeat. The key is to have people working together and understanding one another."
Leisure continues to support nonviolence, but she is starting to weary of city officials who only want to hear her talk about peace.
"I feel like the city does not care, no matter what I do, no matter what I say, as long as I keep the peace, as long as I do little things to bring the city back together," she says. "They're not trying to ease the burden at all. In fact I feel like they're trying to add to it."
'When are they going to be accountable?'
The burden is considerable, even for a woman whose public composure has won admiration.
Thomas' death left Leisure so traumatized that she couldn't even drive. Her daughter was so deeply affected that it took the young girl three months to come to the realization her brother is dead.
"When you wake up to a child screaming at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning, and you hear her screaming her brother's name — " Leisure says, her voice trailing.
Her daughter carried a picture of her brother with her after his death.
"I had to take my children out of the school they were going to and put them in another school because this was talked about so much," Leisure says. "Our life is nothing like it used to be."
Thomas left behind an infant son. The child's mother has been unable to get food stamps or a medical card for the boy, according to Leisure. The mother works and tries to go to school, and Leisure uses money from her son's memorial fund to try to help with her grandson's expenses. It's no small task, Leisure explains, to try to support two households.
Then there's the fear that what happened to Thomas could happen again, devastating another family.
"Every day a mother can wake up to a phone call that their child has been killed," Leisure says.
The manner by which she learned of her son's death remains a source of anger. Leisure says her daughter and Thomas' fiancée went to University Hospital to see what had happened. The hospital staff, she says, told them Thomas had been released.
At District One police headquarters, Leisure says, officers told her daughter they had had no contact with Thomas. Leisure then called the hospital again. This time, she says, the staff told her to get to the hospital right away.
At that point, Leisure says, she was under the impression her son was alive and might need surgery. The family learned from the hospital staff, she says, that Thomas was already dead — and his body had been transferred to the Hamilton County Morgue before Leisure even had a chance to identify him.
Assistant Police Chief Ronald Twitty showed up at the hospital at least one hour and 45 minutes later, Leisure says, blocking a door and asking for family members' names and addresses. When Eric Leisure, her husband, asked what happened, Leisure says Twitty matter-of-factly replied that an officer shot the suspect in the chest and he died.
Twitty says the delay was unintentional; officers were looking for Thomas' family.
Leisure has heard Twitty's explanation before; she gives it little credit.
"I remember the pain that I felt and I remember breaking down," Angela Leisure says. "I could blow up. They want citizens to be accountable. When are they going to be accountable?"
Hell's waiting room
That is an issue city council itself has raised now and again since Thomas' death. Leisure says Luken told her, soon after the death of her son, that nobody has control over the police department. Luken complained that when the city tries to fire a cop, arbitrators put him right back on the force.
Luken is not the only person to complain about discipline of police officers. In an April 17, 2001, memo — three days after Thomas' funeral — Councilman Pat DeWine said the city must take charge.
"Fix the civil service and arbitration process so that we can increase accountability in our police force," DeWine wrote. "It is unacceptable that in 10 cases in a row, some of them egregious, officers who have appealed their terminations have been reinstated."
Leisure might find out more about her son's death when the Office of Municipal Investigation issues a report later this month. But she believes the best source is elsewhere.
"The people who hang out on the street corners down in Over-the-Rhine and people say 'No, I don't want to talk to them' — they're the people I want to talk to the most," Leisure says.
One conclusion she has reached is the problem in Cincinnati is not primarily racial, but rather lack of control over the police department. She refuses to let the city turn what happened into a problem of black versus white.
"That's part of the disease," she says, "but it's not the cause."
Hard-heartedness is also part of the disease, according to Leisure. She knows some Cincinnatians aren't concerned about what is happening with police in the city.
"Somebody had the nerve to say they were a Christian and they didn't see anything wrong with what was happening in Cincinnati," Leisure says. "I serve a just God."
After hearing about the second and third statements Roach gave investigators after shooting her son, she was very upset.
"I pray God please control my anger," Leisure says. "God please control my words."
But she says forgives those who stand in denial, even as she has publicly forgiven Roach. Leisure says she will not let hate overcome her.
"I'm already in hell's waiting room and this is enough hell for me," she says.
Leisure is not idle, however. She is now chair of the Three Square Music Foundation, a group that supports the positive development of youth.
"The community is constantly talking about the problems of our youth, however they fail to step up when asked to," she says. "It is time out for talking the talk. We must walk the walk."
Leisure has also been trying to start the Timothy Thomas Foundation and is looking for a building in Over-the-Rhine. She plans to name the building the Timothy Thomas Building for Peace and Progress. She hopes to find people willing to donate their services to the community, especially to children.
"If you're a good person and you live your life that way, what happens to that person next to you will affect you, because you have compassion," she says.
Donations to the Timothy Thomas Memorial Fund can be made at any Fifth Third Bank location.
