Socialist Action /May 2001
Black Community Rebels in Cincinnati
By ADAM RITSCHER
Mounted police patrol Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine
district following Timothy Thomas's funeral on April 14.
It's 2:13 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, April
7. Two off-duty police officers, working as security guards at a Cincinnati
bar, radio in that they've spotted Timothy Thomas, a young Black man wanted
for 14 outstanding warrants, walking down the street.
At 2:14 a.m., Thomas spots the officers and takes
off running. Within the next couple of minutes 12 other police officers
join in the chase. One of them, Officer Steven Roach, sees Thomas jumping
a fence and gets out of his squad car to pursue him on foot.
At 2:20 a.m., Officer Roach reports he has fired
his weapon, and radios in, "No officer hurt." At 2:23 a.m., Roach
radios, "shots took effect," and requests that an ambulance be
sent to the scene. At 2:30 a.m., the ambulance arrives at University Hospital,
where Timothy Thomas is declared dead from a gun shot wound to the chest.
The outstanding warrants that the police were attempting
to arrest Thomas for were all for misdemeanor charges. Twelve were for traffic
violations (such as not wearing his seat belt), and two were for running
away from police.
The Monday afternoon after Thomas was shot and
killed, Angela Leisure, Thomas's mother, and over 200 other angry African
American Cincinnati residents, took over City Hall demanding to know from
city officials what had happened.
Following the protest inside City Hall, about 1000
protesters marched to a police headquarters nearby. At around midnight police
in riot gear fired tear gas and metal pellet filled bean bag ammunition
from the headquarters' entrance at the protesters still assembled.
The next day, on Tuesday, April 10, a group of
20 young Black men held a peaceful protest at Vine and 13th Streets. They
were holding signs asking passing motorists to honk in support of demanding
justice for Timothy Thomas. Others joined in until the demonstration grew
to about 50 people. At that point police closed traffic on Vine Street.
The protesters began marching north under pressure
from the police. As they did so the police followed closely behind. A confrontation
developed with the police and many protesters took off running, making their
way downtown and attacking various businesses and symbols of authority (such
as a painted sculpture of a pig). Thus began the "riot," as police
called it.
For the next two days police cars relentlessly
roamed the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, which is predominately African American,
chasing any suspicious-looking Black youth.
Many young people vented their anger and frustration
by throwing plastic soda pop bottles at police, and smashing windows. Several
businesses were broken into, and a few white motorists were attacked.
The mayor declared a state of emergency and decreed
a dawn to dusk curfew. For a time there was even talk of calling in the
National Guard.
By the time the curfew was lifted, 852 people had
been arrested. Most of these were for curfew violations. Sixty-three Blacks
however, have been indicted for felonies, mostly for "breaking and
entering."
What caused the "rioting"?
Timothy Thomas was a 19-year-old Black man. Friends
and family members describe him as a kind and non-violent person. He was
killed by a white police officer who was attempting to arrest him over traffic
violations. The cop claims he feared for his life, and that he saw Thomas
reach for something in his waist area. Police have admitted though that
no weapon was found on Thomas.
A video exists of the fatal shooting, but it has
been locked up pending a federal investigation, an investigation that the
Fraternal Order of Police says will prove that Officer Steven Roach acted
in self-defense.
However, regardless of what the federal investigation
ends up concluding, few outside the FOP put much faith in the words of Roach
or any other Cincinnati police officer. Timothy Thomas was the 15th Black
man to be killed by Cincinnati police since 1995, and the fourth since November.
Five months prior to Thomas's murder, Roger Owensby Jr., a Black man from
the College Hill neighborhood, died while in police custody from manual
asphyxiation.
"Black men, African American men, in this
city have a reason to be afraid," said James Diamond, dean of Christ
Church Cathedral. "As a white person, I'm afraid for them."
Racism is so prevalent in the Cincinnati police
force, that last month two Black police officers resigned from the local
Fraternal Order of Police in disgust with racist comments from local FOP
leaders in response to recent events. Scotty Johnson, the head of Sentinels,
an association of Black police officers in the city, says that he knows
of at least 35 other Black police officers considering doing the same thing.
The actions by these two Black officers came right
after an announcement by 120 Black Cincinnati firefighters to split from
the FOP-friendly firefighters' union.
According to recent U.S. census figures, Cincinnati
now ranks eighth among the most racially segregated cities in the United
States. Forty-three percent of the city's 330,000 people are Black. Many
Blacks live in predominantly Black neighborhoods, such as Over-the-Rhine,
where the average income is about one-third that of predominantly white
neighborhoods. The unemployment rate for Cincinnati as a whole is officially
said to be 3.8 percent; in Over-the-Rhine it is 30 percent.
These numbers give you an idea of the hardships
that many Blacks face in the city on a daily basis, hardships compounded
by the ruthless tactics of the city's police.
Manhunt launched to find "culprits"
The mass outpouring of outrage against the murder
of Timothy Thomas, and the subsequent bringing to world attention of the
plight facing Cincinnati's Black community, has put the city's government
in the spot light. This light has in turn illuminated a lot more than the
city's powers-that-be would probably like us to see.
When questioned about racism in the police department,
the local head of the FOP responded by pointing to pictures of miscellaneous
Cincinnati police officers who have been shot over the years and stating
that all of them were shot by Blacks. Similarly, the FOP's response to the
defection of Black police officers and firefighters from their unions has
been very dismissive and callous.
Actions and remarks coming from City Hall are not
much better. Mike Allen, the county prosecutor, seems to think that the
most important thing the city has to do now is make sure that any and all
Blacks who may have smashed a window are brought to justice. He has subpoenaed
video footage from Cincinnati's TV stations to identify any "culprits"
who may have alluded the police drag nets.
Allen has been suggesting that some suspects may
be charged with "aggravated menace" or "ethnic intimidation,"
and has said, ''calls to 'Crime Stoppers' by the law-abiding community will
be the wake-up calls that these young bullies are not expecting.'' He has
also said that if statute laws prove not to be harsh enough, he will attempt
to employ federal hate crime laws.
While Mr. Allen tries to reassure the "law-abiding
community" in Cincinnati, the city council has finally decided to try
to help the city's Black community as well. They are in the process of hiring
a private contractor that will come into the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood
six days a week to clean the streets! According to Mr. Tarbell, a city council
member, "Mr. Clean was born and raised here," referring to the
fact that Procter & Gamble, the maker of "Mr. Clean" cleaning
products, has its headquarters in Cincinnati.
Police attack funeral procession
The greatest outrage however, was the unprovoked
police attack on the Timothy Thomas funeral procession, which was held on
April 14. Over 2000 mourners turned out for the event.
The procession was marching peacefully down the
street, and there had been no confrontations with the police. Suddenly,
according to witnesses (who range from city officials to passersby) and
Victoria Spurling, a photographer taking pictures of the procession, several
police cars came racing around a corner, squealing their tires.
Four of the cars came to a screeching halt in the
middle of the street. Several cops jumped out, and without any warning simply
started firing at the crowd. They were shooting bean bag projectiles filled
with metal pellets; four people were injured, including two children. One
of the injured people, a teacher from Louisville, was shot twice, resulting
in a cracked rib and bruising on her lung and spleen. Only as the crowd
fled for cover did Spurling overhear one of the officers say simply, "Go
on! Get out of here!"
On April 17, hundreds of outraged citizens again
jammed City Hall. This time, for five hours, one after another went up to
the microphone to testify about police brutality, racial profiling, terrible
housing and the general conditions felt by Black residents.
Under such pressure, and the admission of even
some city officials and corporate figures that the police were totally unprovoked
in their attack on the funeral, the mayor has taken his distance from the
officers in question, and the city council is planning on opening a series
of hearings on racial profiling in which community members can voice their
grievances.
But even this concession has been challenged by
some in the city's hierarchy. Keith Fangman, president of the local FOP,
still insists that the police were well in line to do what they did, that
they will most certainly be exonerated by any investigation, and that the
city has to remember that the real crimes committed were on shop windows.
According to Fangman, "If we give one inch
to these terrorists in the form of negotiations, then we've got no one to
blame but ourselves when we turn into another Detroit or Washington, D.C."
What is most unfortunate about the murder of Timothy
Thomas, and the conditions that exist in Over-the-Rhine, is that they are
by no means unique. Timothy Thomas is indeed the 15th Black man to be killed
in Cincinnati since 1995. But worse than that, he ranks in the hundreds
of Blacks and other working-class people who have been killed by police
nationwide.
From the murder of Riverside, California's 17-year-old
Tyesha Miller as she lay sleeping in her car to the murder of unarmed Amadou
Diallo who was shot 19 times by New York police, America's police have left
a wide trail of grieving families.
Likewise, there are hundreds of Over-the-Rhine
neighborhoods across the country. Neighborhoods where to stay alive people
often feel they have to run when they see a police car. Neighborhoods where
good jobs and decent housing are about as rare golden lampposts.
These are the results of a capitalist system that
places money over people, and that is by no means above employing racism
and the marginalization of a whole people to ensure its survival. Racism
is not some persistent disease caused simply by ignorance, it is tool consciously
employed by the ruling class to keep us divided and weak.
We salute the Cincinnati Black youth who stood
up to police racism, and we call on all workers and young people to rally
in their defense!
Socialist Action /May 2001 |