Speaker 1: Do you want to be an a Manican idiot? Plenty
Speaker 1: on seven hundred WLW. It's often said that if a
Speaker 1: police officer wants to pull you over and they're looking
Speaker 1: for a reason why, they'll find some. They'll find tall
Speaker 1: light out, something blinking, touch the fog line, touch center line, signal,
Speaker 1: to early signal too, like something on those like that,
Speaker 1: if they want to they're looking to pull you over,
Speaker 1: the pull you over? Did this just happen to Terry
Speaker 1: Thiji in a much bigger sense? Of course? Cincinnati releasing
Speaker 1: a bombshell report on the police chief in the police
Speaker 1: chief at Limbo may have not been fired yet and
Speaker 1: after six months, roughly six months, thirty two witnesses and
Speaker 1: now a verdict that could end your career. This is
Speaker 1: what the investigation found. This is what an attorney called
Speaker 1: a shameful hatchet job. The information is out and some
Speaker 1: of the highlights we'll get into with Ken Kober, fopre
Speaker 1: president on the show on seven hundred WLW. Safe to
Speaker 1: say Ken that there's not much love lost here. I
Speaker 1: know the rank and found not big fans of Terry Thiji,
Speaker 1: but everyone hates their boss in America pretty much, don't.
Speaker 2: They Yeah, for the most part, that's true. And your
Speaker 2: chiefs are no exception. You have half the rank and
Speaker 2: file will love the chief and the other half won't.
Speaker 2: Let's just waste society is yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this investigation, I'm pretty thorough with Frost Brown,
Speaker 1: Todd Gibbons did and talked to thirty two. They interviewed
Speaker 1: thirty to forty two. A couple people obviously did not
Speaker 1: want to go on a record. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are nervous about this. The report concludes, Terry Thiji has
Speaker 1: not been an effective leader of the department. Again, she
Speaker 1: has not fired at this time. It's an ongoing personal matter.
Speaker 1: Whatever the hell that means. Six months later, that she
Speaker 1: was too old school, pretty authoritarian and rigid. Her communication
Speaker 1: style like transparency, distrust. There's a strong culture of retaliation
Speaker 1: inside a CPD, and that if she allegedly blocked city Hall,
Speaker 1: and that would include the city manager and the assistant
Speaker 1: city manager from communicating with her command staff directly, I
Speaker 1: had to go through her, and this of course started
Speaker 1: to unravel during the violent summer that we just had
Speaker 1: and it became an untenable situation. Oddly enough, coincide, coinciding
Speaker 1: with the election, and so that's the political context, that's
Speaker 1: the facts of the matter. Here, let's jump into the
Speaker 1: bones of this thing. The report says that she rejected
Speaker 1: the Mayor's office of double overtime pay, citing a potential
Speaker 1: collective bargaining violation. Basically, she said that the city wanted
Speaker 1: double time for officers. We're going to work the hell
Speaker 1: out of you. She said, Well, I want my men
Speaker 1: and women to work the hell out of and they
Speaker 1: need some time off and they should only get time
Speaker 1: in a half as well. Did you ever consult you
Speaker 1: with the FOP about that?
Speaker 2: And was she right? No? What we did talk about
Speaker 2: was the forced overtime that city Hall wanted to put
Speaker 2: upon people, specifically to walk in areas of Vine Street
Speaker 2: and Main Street and over the Rhine that quite honestly,
Speaker 2: just weren't having problems. When she talks about the data,
Speaker 2: the data did not suggest in those blocks that they
Speaker 2: should be patrolling forced to work overtime. And that's she said,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna go to the line. These cops
Speaker 2: are overworked. I'm not going to force them to work more.
Speaker 1: Well, the cops were you're rank and file, though, were
Speaker 1: they leaning more towards Hey, I get extra money, I
Speaker 1: get double time, or going hey, thank god, I can't
Speaker 1: work these many hours I had to manage. It was
Speaker 1: fairly divided. But what was the mindset generally speaking of
Speaker 1: the rank and file.
Speaker 2: Then for the most part, people are just burnt out
Speaker 2: and they're like, listen, we're working enough as it is.
Speaker 2: You have you have a pretty small faction of the
Speaker 2: department that consistently works overtime. You know, with this new
Speaker 2: generation of cops, a lot of them prefer, you know,
Speaker 2: work life balance, and they would rather be home instead
Speaker 2: of working. And then there's there's some that are like, yeh,
Speaker 2: I'll work, I'll work all the time. But you can't
Speaker 2: continue to go from that same pool of people. And
Speaker 2: then now you're going to tell them now not only hey,
Speaker 2: thank you for volunteering for all these hours, but now
Speaker 2: we're going to order you to work more. And that
Speaker 2: was something that a lot of officers were upset about.
Speaker 1: The report describes a strong culture of retaliation inside the force.
Speaker 1: Are your members telling you the same thing? And how
Speaker 1: long has it been going on?
Speaker 2: Well, listen, I've been here twenty six years. There's been
Speaker 2: people that have complained about retaliation for the last twenty
Speaker 2: six years I've been here, and you talked to retire
Speaker 2: guys that came before me that have always complained about
Speaker 2: the same thing. You know, retaliation is something that certainly
Speaker 2: has to be proven, not just you know, suspected of.
Speaker 2: But I would say that under her leadership it was
Speaker 2: no different than any other leadership.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean there's cases you go back that
Speaker 1: are still being said, the Pettist case and others where
Speaker 1: it's a case of maybe discrimination, but that seems to
Speaker 1: pop up often with labor relations inside police forces Cincinnati notwithstanding.
Speaker 2: No, You're absolutely right. I mean, there's there's always been
Speaker 2: this element of people being unsatisfied for one reason or another.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's people that have that passed up for
Speaker 2: preferred assignments that believe that they were wrong for one
Speaker 2: reason or another. And it's it's something that unfortunately is
Speaker 2: just part of police culture. And I think trying to
Speaker 2: use that as an example of why, you know, she
Speaker 2: was an effective leader is just very misguided.
Speaker 1: Witness has told investigators who are nervous to be interviewed
Speaker 1: they feared backlash, career consequences, et cetera. Is that a
Speaker 1: common fear. How widespread is that with your membership.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people just want to come
Speaker 2: to work and do their job. And in this particular case,
Speaker 2: there were some that just refused to interview, and a
Speaker 2: couple of them that I talked to you said, listen,
Speaker 2: I'm just a po I'm here to do a job.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get involved in city hall politics.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't have anything to say. And I
Speaker 2: think it was less about necessarily retaliation from the police
Speaker 2: department as it was just I don't want to be
Speaker 2: involved in this because the reality is what's going to
Speaker 2: happen now. These names are going to be released, and
Speaker 2: once they're released, you know, there's going to be depositions,
Speaker 2: there's going to be personnel jackets requested, all of these things,
Speaker 2: and it's just something that cops just don't want to
Speaker 2: deal with it, Ken Cober.
Speaker 1: The report says morale has improved under interim chief Henny.
Speaker 2: Is that a fact? I think if you ask the
Speaker 2: cops that we're dealing with thousands of people in the
Speaker 2: streets fighting on Thursday, they would probably tell you that
Speaker 2: morale is still a challenge. You know, I think there
Speaker 2: there are certainly things that Chief Henny has done that
Speaker 2: has has helped to make things more positive. But you
Speaker 2: have to understand that he's also still under our collective
Speaker 2: barneting agreement, so there's only so much that City Hall
Speaker 2: could do to him if he does something they don't like.
Speaker 2: Whereas you know, Chief Biji and other permanent chiefs before
Speaker 2: are constantly under the thumb of City Hall and you're
Speaker 2: making those decisions. So I mean, I think it's like
Speaker 2: anything else. If you ask after the department, if they
Speaker 2: were satisfied the Chief Henny's here, I think they're gonna
Speaker 2: say yeah. I think if you ask certain people they
Speaker 2: would be yeah. Maybe maybe this isn't the greatest idea,
Speaker 2: but that's normal. That is a completely normal scenario for
Speaker 2: anybody that's in charge of the police department.
Speaker 1: Ken Cober is a president of the FOP Queen City Lodge.
Speaker 1: Joining the Scottsland Show here seven hundred WW on the
Speaker 1: Fiji report coming out the former chief, the Chief in Limbo,
Speaker 1: if you will, it took almost six months, Kenkober, and
Speaker 1: it was only nine pages, and that strikes me as
Speaker 1: I've seen reports like this where it just goes on
Speaker 1: and on on it. It's like a it's like like
Speaker 1: the Bible. Right, this is only nine pages. Did you
Speaker 1: see anything in there that was news to you that
Speaker 1: surprised you or shocked you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were some things that were in there, And
Speaker 2: whether they're true or not, I don't know, because obviously
Speaker 2: I wasn't a party to it. But problems with command
Speaker 2: staff officers and the chief, the stuff about the city
Speaker 2: manager and the mayor and the assistant city manager, the
Speaker 2: chief blocking things. I certainly questioned, if they knew that
Speaker 2: she was purposely obstructing communication, why didn't they do something
Speaker 2: about it when it happened. Why are we waiting till
Speaker 2: now months later? And the interesting part about this entire
Speaker 2: investigation that none of these interviews were recorded. They were
Speaker 2: purposely not recorded. They were told you are not allowed
Speaker 2: to record these interviews, and we're not going to record them.
Speaker 2: We're simply going to take notes that, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: lacks a whole lot of transparency. I mean, you look
Speaker 2: at these officers. Good to Internal Investigation Section. Interviews are recorded,
Speaker 2: they go to the citizens complain authority, they're recorded. My god,
Speaker 2: we put body cameras on cops. We have cameras in cars.
Speaker 2: Everything these officers do are recorded, but now they want
Speaker 2: them to participate in this investigation involving city hall, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, no, no, no, we're not going
Speaker 2: to record anything that doesn't pass the smell testomy.
Speaker 1: Is that more about the retaliation fear that that very
Speaker 1: fewer people I guess would testify if that were the case,
Speaker 1: and said, hey, listen, I'll talk to you, but you
Speaker 1: write it down. I don't want my voice recorded. Then
Speaker 1: that can get leaked out. And now we have audio evidence.
Speaker 2: No, this was up the request of Frost Brown and talk.
Speaker 2: Actually it wasn't even a request. It was a demand
Speaker 2: that you not recorded and that they're not going to
Speaker 2: record it. And here's the thing. All of this is
Speaker 2: going to come out eventually anyway, because everybody's going to
Speaker 2: be deposed. I mean, assuming that the chief fire or yo,
Speaker 2: she ends up getting fired, she sues the city, all
Speaker 2: of these people that interviewed are going to be subject
Speaker 2: to deposition. So it's all going to come out anyway. Now,
Speaker 2: everything in this report was witnesses said, Witnesses said, witnesses said,
Speaker 2: and there's really going to be no proof of what
Speaker 2: they said other than notes that someone supposedly.
Speaker 1: Took uh Fiji herself. Obviously, it said the thing's a
Speaker 1: lightning rod for her as well, and all the trouble
Speaker 1: gets thrown at her feet because it's an easy excuse.
Speaker 1: You know, wind blows off lids off a garbage cans, Well,
Speaker 1: it's her fault. We can blame it. It happened on her watch,
Speaker 1: even though she had no hand in that. That's part
Speaker 1: of this thing. Her attorney, the very capable Stephen m
Speaker 1: called us Sing a hatchet job. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2: We knew it was going to be from the beginning.
Speaker 2: You put somebody on administrative lea two weeks before an election,
Speaker 2: and then it takes you six months to figure out
Speaker 2: whether somebody was effective or not, you know, as somebody
Speaker 2: who is throughout their career, if they if she had
Speaker 2: all these problems to city Hall, why wasn't anything documented
Speaker 2: before this? It just doesn't make any sense. We we
Speaker 2: all know why this occurred. You know, this was this
Speaker 2: was a political blunder yet again by the city and
Speaker 2: it's well, we'll see how this ends up in court,
Speaker 2: but I would suspect that she's probably going to do
Speaker 2: pretty well for herself.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say, if it's a blunder, it worked
Speaker 1: out pretty well for him because of aftab On down
Speaker 1: All got reelected.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that was that was a foregone conclusion.
Speaker 2: If if they would have kept her, I think the
Speaker 2: election would have been the exact same way. But I
Speaker 2: think someone over at City Hall got nervous and thought
Speaker 2: that maybe this would help re elections. But the reality is,
Speaker 2: I don't think it had any impact one way or another.
Speaker 1: You think our expectations because we were pretty so much
Speaker 1: seed eidehim on most things. Ken cober Uh President the
Speaker 1: FOP that that we're out of touch with what the
Speaker 1: citizens want. Because if all this is going on and
Speaker 1: they just re elect the same people they had before that,
Speaker 1: that and and by pretty wide margins too, that tells
Speaker 1: me this is what the residents want. Are we are you?
Speaker 1: Are you fighting? Are you trying to push a boulder
Speaker 1: up hill?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's funny that this is what the
Speaker 2: citizens want. Yet when they just did this survey and
Speaker 2: they talked about how safety has to be prioritized, they're
Speaker 2: afraid to be in their own neighborhood, But yet they've
Speaker 2: they've voted in the exact same people. So clearly this
Speaker 2: is what they want, and at this point I think
Speaker 2: we need to just sit back and go. If this
Speaker 2: is what they want, this is what they get. You know,
Speaker 2: the old adage of you get you get the government
Speaker 2: that you deserve and that you elect is absolutely true.
Speaker 2: And clearly they're okay with the things are going on
Speaker 2: in this city. So you know, at this point, you
Speaker 2: give the voters what they want.
Speaker 1: Ken Kober, you'r rank and file. They get scrutinized all
Speaker 1: the time, your your pos and and op the fin
Speaker 1: Did it surprise you or is it pretty commonplace that
Speaker 1: all of these bad things came about Fiji is the
Speaker 1: reason why they suspended her and ultimate problem of fire
Speaker 1: and cut her a big check. It's performance based. She
Speaker 1: hadn't had a review, a performance review in seven years,
Speaker 1: and yet they threw this out there like she's supposed
Speaker 1: to know. She'd never been corrected on any of this.
Speaker 1: Is that common?
Speaker 2: Well, listen, here's the always been the problem with the city.
Speaker 2: And everybody wants to blame the FOP for defending its members.
Speaker 2: You know, when they get suspended, when they get terminated,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden these suspensions go away. People
Speaker 2: get reinstated for their jobs and they're terminated. And it's
Speaker 2: all because the city historically has done a terrible job
Speaker 2: documenting things with people that they say are problems, and
Speaker 2: this is no different. You have somebody that has spent
Speaker 2: thirty five years here, Absolutely nothing has been documented. There's
Speaker 2: never been anything saying, hey, you need to do a
Speaker 2: better job, not a performance evaluation. How can you improve
Speaker 2: on your performance if you're not told the things that
Speaker 2: you need to improve upon.
Speaker 1: And I think that also gets back to the witness.
Speaker 1: They don't want a paper trail, they don't want evidence
Speaker 1: people testifying. It's you know, if if there's no permanent
Speaker 1: record of this, whether it's a performance evaluation or you
Speaker 1: could always move the line right, you can, you could
Speaker 1: take that information and tweak it and use it to
Speaker 1: see how you fit. It's manipulative, is what it is.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And that's where I said the lack of transparency
Speaker 2: in this investigation, it's just it's it's staggering. Now, whether
Speaker 2: those were the rules of engagement for Frost Brown Todd,
Speaker 2: which very well I would suspect would be the case,
Speaker 2: because as far as I know, they're a very very
Speaker 2: reputable law firm. But then again, I also understand that
Speaker 2: you know, you're hired by a client and they say, hey,
Speaker 2: this is how you want they this is how we
Speaker 2: want you to do this, these your marching orders, this
Speaker 2: is what you do. Completely understand that it's just the
Speaker 2: entire thing just lacks transparency, and that that I think
Speaker 2: is ultimately where I think the city is going to
Speaker 2: be most vulnerable when you get into any kind of litigation.
Speaker 1: The reason why lawyers are called counselors is they counsel
Speaker 1: They can't actually force you to do something You're to
Speaker 1: hit their consultants basically, So if the marching orders are, hey,
Speaker 1: we don't want any recordings of witnesses, and this is
Speaker 1: why we want the investigation to go, that's the context
Speaker 1: in which your employer, in this case, the City of Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: sets forth to the law firm. The report also says
Speaker 1: that Terry Thigi block City Hall from communicating directly with
Speaker 1: the assistant chiefs and the command staff. Did you at
Speaker 1: the FOP Ken cob ever raised concerns over that chain
Speaker 1: of command break down.
Speaker 2: I'd never heard that. You know, Like I said, I'm
Speaker 2: in a little bit different position just because yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: an FOP leader, but I'm not in the command staff.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure there's certain things that had been
Speaker 2: kept for me on purpose, and I get it. That's
Speaker 2: kind of the relationship between union leaders and you know,
Speaker 2: leaders from the police departments, so that that wouldn't I mean,
Speaker 2: as far as me being left out, it doesn't surprise
Speaker 2: a bit. I mean, I fully expected. But if that's
Speaker 2: something that city Hall knew was going on, then they
Speaker 2: never addressed it. That's on there.
Speaker 1: Multiple witnesses described the nepotism favoritism in that as a
Speaker 1: huge problem inside CPD. Then even pre Day's Terry Fija,
Speaker 1: I think that said that report. Is that a fair characterization.
Speaker 1: I think it's gone on forever.
Speaker 2: I know the example that was used was her nephew,
Speaker 2: who's the lieutenant our department. He was the only one.
Speaker 2: They made him the legal liaison after he went to
Speaker 2: law school, passed the bar. He was the only one
Speaker 2: at the time that I'm aware of that had a
Speaker 2: law degree. It made complete sense to put him in
Speaker 2: that position. So I guess that's what they're going to
Speaker 2: try to use and say that this was favoritism and nepotism.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's been accusations of that for as
Speaker 2: long as I've been there, certainly long before I was there,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure it's going to be at least accused
Speaker 2: of long after I'm gone.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, we have a community activist in Iris
Speaker 1: Rawley who is not a big fan of what you
Speaker 1: guys do for a living, and the opposite is true
Speaker 1: whose son works for her, and yet there's no cris
Speaker 1: of nepotism there.
Speaker 2: M kind of interesting, isn't it, ken Kober?
Speaker 1: What do you see? What do you see shaken out
Speaker 1: from this?
Speaker 2: All? Right?
Speaker 1: So they got to you can find anything on anybody, right,
Speaker 1: I mean if you if Frost they hired Fraud, if
Speaker 1: the Vatican hired Frost, Brown Todd Gibbons to investigate the Pope,
Speaker 1: you think he was dirty as hell, because you're there
Speaker 1: going to find dirt on you. I mentioned the pretext
Speaker 1: of a stop for example, you want to pull a
Speaker 1: subject over, you know you can find something that they're
Speaker 1: doing driving in a car in order to initiate that stop.
Speaker 1: That the same is true here. What do you think
Speaker 1: comes of all this? They just wind up settling and
Speaker 1: we're talking millions and millions of dollars here for Chief Thiji.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's hard to say. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't think there's a scenario where she comes back, and
Speaker 2: I certainly I don't blame her. I don't know how
Speaker 2: you would be able to come back and work in
Speaker 2: this kind of environment, knowing that that the things that
Speaker 2: have been done to you over the last six months.
Speaker 2: I think it's likely the city is going to end
Speaker 2: up terminating or be followed by a lawsuit in three
Speaker 2: years from now, you know, we'll be sitting here talking
Speaker 2: about what the results of this lawsuit are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then the people who cut the check or
Speaker 1: council people go well, I wasn't here.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The favorite thing is well, I was elected, then, I
Speaker 1: was on council, then I wasn't mayor then, and you
Speaker 1: know you have got cover and so it goes. But overall,
Speaker 1: the what effect does this have on the rank and
Speaker 1: file officers you represent, the FOP, Cancobra And what about
Speaker 1: Chief Henny. I mean, he's got to be looking over
Speaker 1: his shoulder too.
Speaker 2: I would think, well, yeah, I think that whatever decision
Speaker 2: they make, right, wrong or indifferent, it needs to be
Speaker 2: made the men and women of this police department. They
Speaker 2: deserve to know who's going to be in charge of
Speaker 2: this police department going into summer. We know it's going
Speaker 2: to be a long, hot summer. We know that things
Speaker 2: like Opening Day are likely going to occur again. We're
Speaker 2: going to be seeing protests almost every weekend as the
Speaker 2: weather warms up. They have a right to know who's
Speaker 2: going to be in charge. Just like Chief Henny, he
Speaker 2: should be knowing whether or not he's going to be here,
Speaker 2: he's not going to be here. Those are decisions that
Speaker 2: need to be made immediate. Like I said, what regardless
Speaker 2: of what those decisions are, it's owed to these men
Speaker 2: and women of who's going to be in charge of
Speaker 2: this place.
Speaker 1: I will say in final final point here, they're throwing
Speaker 1: the crime problem with Terry Thigi. She mishandled everything, and
Speaker 1: we had the violence, the brawl downtown, we had Fountain
Speaker 1: Square and others. But ever since she has been quote
Speaker 1: unquote terminated for the last six months, it's not like
Speaker 1: we've not had We've seen crime go down and violent
Speaker 1: crime as a result, whether it's three takeovers, mass shootings
Speaker 1: and the like. Pretty much this is what we wind
Speaker 1: up get. The Opening Day stampede, if you'll call it that.
Speaker 1: And this shows me it's not a problem of the chief,
Speaker 1: it's the culture and the climate. I know for a
Speaker 1: fact that you know, the city didn't want to like
Speaker 1: the idea that Fiji was attacking judges and saying they
Speaker 1: got to do a better job, or when she's out
Speaker 1: there being Chief Mema talking about how kids need to
Speaker 1: be held responsible by their parents. City didn't want any
Speaker 1: part of that, which is shocking because that's where it starts.
Speaker 2: Without a doubt, and as long as we have this
Speaker 2: lack of accountability, this is going to continue. It doesn't
Speaker 2: matter who you make the chief, it doesn't matter any
Speaker 2: of this, It doesn't matter who's in leadership. Until the
Speaker 2: court system decides to hold people accountable for their actions,
Speaker 2: we're going to see this and it's likely going to
Speaker 2: get worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1: He's Ken Cober, President of the Queen City Lodge of
Speaker 1: the FOP. Ken, thanks for jumping in this morning. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you. I know you're busy as hell and probably
Speaker 1: extremely tired about talking about this topic. This won't be
Speaker 1: the last time, brother, appreciate.
Speaker 2: It all good. Thanks Thanks for there you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me get an update and we're running late,
Speaker 1: but good stuff there with ken Well Pivot. Julie Bouke
Speaker 1: is here a career sure if it's Julie on the
Speaker 1: job from an HR and workplace type of environment, and
Speaker 1: she's an expert in that. What lessons you learn from
Speaker 1: what happened to Terry Fiji that you can applay in
Speaker 1: your workplace, whether what comes down to performance reviews for example,
Speaker 1: Chat with her next about it right after news on
Speaker 1: seven hundred WW