Police Shoot at Cincinnati Mourners

Sat Apr 14 17:42:29 2001 -- Cincy Cops Fire Into Crowd of Mourners
http://ohiovalleyimc.org/cgi-bin/imc.pl?where=display&article=181

Robin Banks :robinbanks [at] disinfo.net

Cincinnati Ohio 5:40 pm 4/14/01 - A Louisville woman was shot point-blank three times by police armed with beanbag shotguns outside of the funeral for Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Cincinnati Mayor Charles Luken and Ohio Governor Bob Taft both spoke at the funeral, which lasted for over three hours. An overflow crowd of several thousand stood outside New Prospect Baptist Church listening to the service on a sound system set up for that purpose.

When the funeral ended the crowd began to move away. Around 4 pm, four police cars drove up and stopped next to the mourners. They fired beanbag rounds into the crowd without warning.

"It was like a drive-by," said David Waggoner of Louisville KY, who witnessed the entire incident. "They didn't say 'freeze', they didn't say nothing. They just jumped out and shot."

The woman, Christine Jones, was shot in the neck, kidneys and abdomen. She had been carrying a banner belonging to the Louisville organization Citizens Against Police Abuse at the time.

The crowd ran away and the police pursued and continued firing. A seven year-old child was also hit by the beanbag rounds. The child's mother picked him up and fled immediately.

The crowd of mourners, who were mostly black, was very supportive of Christine Jones, who is white. "All of these people who said that this was a white-black thing, that Cincinnati's black people are anti-white, are wrong. Black people pulled Christine into a doorway to protect her after the cops shot her," said Tom Pearce of Louisville.

Someone called 911 but it took one hour for the ambulance to arrive. Witnesses said that the Cincinnati Safety Director James Turbin (sp?) was present at the incident.

Currently (at 5:30 pm) people are filling the Cincinnati streets. Fire trucks are racing through the city.

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Sat Apr 14 19:29:40 2001 -- Report of Saturday's Events
http://ohiovalleyimc.org/cgi-bin/imc.pl?where=display&article=183

John M :meinkejf [at] hotmail.com

4/14/01 - This is a report of what I hears and saw earlier today (Saturday).

This morning at 10am, a group of University of Cincinnati students held a small press conference in Washington Park. The group calls themselves "Students and Youth Organizing for Justice and Equality." It is a coalition of black and white student groups that formed to protest the recent shooting. There were about 30 people there and several reporters.

From there, people marched to the site of the funeral. It's difficult to estimate, but there were perhaps 1000 people. The police had agreed to not come within about 1 mile of the funeral, and they very wisely stuck to that promise. Aside from the reporters, only 2 or 3% of the people there were white.

Once the funeral started (around 2:30), about half of the people outside decided to march. The rest stayed and listened to the service, which was broadcast out into the street (the church was full). Mayor Charlie Luken and Governor Bob Taft spoke at the funeral, which brought a lot of boos from outside. The mayor said some BS about how its time to work for positive change in our police force and community. People who live here know that the mayor usually never misses a chance to talk about how proud he is of our police force.

After the funeral ended, there was a press conference where the head of the NAACP promised to join the current lawsuit filed against the city for racial profiling, which drew a standing ovation.

In the middle of the press conference, someone ran in and announced that the police were firing rubber bullets. I ran with about 100 people to the scene and found a very tense situation. From what I heard, people were just holding up signs and shouting when the police approached and opened fire without warning. The police had left by the time we arrived, but people were still visibly angry. Apparently, one of the bullets hit a baby.

We all marched fromn there (about 200 people) toward District 1 (the main police station). On the way, several people attacked a white reporter, but other people immediately intervened and saved the reporter before he was hurt. At District One, the police had set up a blockade with their cars and were standing behind them with guns aimed. There was about a 1/2 hour standoff with protestors standing and sitting on one side of the street and police on the other.

Finally, someone negotiated with the police to let us march to Taft High Scool, where another march was scheduled to leave at 4:30. We went there and joined up with perhaps 2000 people for an interdenominational religious march for Thomas. This was a relatively diverse march compared to the rest of the day (about 25 or 30% white).

The curfew is scheduled to start in 1/2 hour. There was some talk of violating the curfew, but at this point, I don't expect it to happen.

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Video, audio, text, photos, breaking news and more about the Cincinnati Ohio protests, riots, killings of 4 blacks by police since November, investigations, politics, etc.. 15 blacks killed by police since 1995. No whites. Corporate and progressive news URLs:
http://www.cincinow.com --TV 9. Video, audio, text, photos.
http://www.channelcincinnati.com --TV 5. Video, audio, text, photos.
http://www.cincynation.com --Various news sources compiled.
http://enquirer.com --Cincinnati Enquirer.
http://www.cincypost.com --Cincinnati Post.
http://www.citybeat.com --alternative weekly. Early firsthand reports.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/Local/Cincinnati_Riots/ --Yahoo Full Coverage.
Check Reuters wire to watch for Cincinnati articles to show up:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ts/nm/?u --Top Stories - Reuters.
Check the AP wire to watch for Cincinnati articles to show up:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ts/ap/?u --AP text and photos.
http://www.newsday.com/ap/text/topnews/index.htm --AP text.
http://www.ohiovalleyimc.org --Ohio Valley Independent Media Center has many articles linked on the homepage. To see more, click the "display all articles" link at the bottom right, and then keep clicking "display next ten articles." Post articles! Links (full URLS) in articles are made clickable.

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Here is a quote from a Cincinnati Enquirer article today:
http://enquirer.com/editions/2001/04/14/loc_police_not_nazis.html

"Cincinnati's police union leader blasted city officials Friday, saying their statements have helped promote an unfair national image of local officers. The city's officers are not 'a band of rogue Nazis roaming around Cincinnati hunting black men,' said Keith Fangman, president of the Fraternal Order of Police."

I guess technically he is right. They believe in equal abuse at times. White women mixing with black men also merit their roaming, drive-by hunting tactics. And if kids and babies are near the cross-hairs, then they go ahead and shoot anyway. Multiple times for good effect.