Speaker 1: Do you want to be in a man Stott flumshow
Speaker 1: on seven hundred w LW. As we cut through, it's
Speaker 1: on this Tuesday, getting ready for some Marty Gray action tonight.
Speaker 1: More on that later, we had let's see a shooting
Speaker 1: on a party of bus on Valentine's Day we in
Speaker 1: that left one dead one injured. Sunday we had about
Speaker 1: one forty am two people killed, two more injury to
Speaker 1: shooting at a club on Hamilton Avenue in Northside. Of course,
Speaker 1: overnight we have a body that was found one at
Speaker 1: Lynn and Poplar, I believe. So they're kind of a
Speaker 1: steady drumbeat of homicides and the numbers are up a
Speaker 1: little bit year over year, which is causing concern. Joining
Speaker 1: the show this morning as the president of the Cincinnati
Speaker 1: Lodge Queency Lodge FOP at be Ken cober Ken.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Hi you, Ben.
Speaker 3: Heay, Good morning, Seth. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: First, I did want to give condolences because anytime an
Speaker 1: officer goes down to Metaware, it has cost for reflection
Speaker 1: and concerned. And we just had two officers shot outside
Speaker 1: Indianapolis yesterday, one fatal for that matter.
Speaker 2: So condolences, appreciate it.
Speaker 3: It's terrible. Actually, I was just an Indianapolis over the
Speaker 3: weekend and it's just terrible, terrible that things like this happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. Well, we'll see.
Speaker 1: I know that they caught the guy responsible or the
Speaker 1: subject anyway, so that's get him off the street anyway
Speaker 1: and behind bars if not worse. But so we had
Speaker 1: a reduction after the last for well the first two
Speaker 1: months of this year. I guess we're seeing your rise
Speaker 1: after reduction last year. So crime was down, but two
Speaker 1: high I said, mentioned the high profile shootings and the
Speaker 1: fatal last night at Popula Land. Crime numbers this year,
Speaker 1: and it's against a very small sample. We're halfway through February,
Speaker 1: but a year of a year, we're up like forty percent.
Speaker 1: In considering the fact that it has been bloody cold
Speaker 1: ever since Christmas. That takes a lot of doing to
Speaker 1: get people out on the street shooting people or in
Speaker 1: this case clubs. Maybe is that a concern and is
Speaker 1: that a concern of the hot summer to come?
Speaker 3: Sure, it absolutely is. I mean we did see a
Speaker 3: little bit of spike in a little bit warmer weather,
Speaker 3: which I'm sure it probably contributed to more people being
Speaker 3: out and of course had alcohol and guns at at
Speaker 3: a nightclub, and you know that's is a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it is very concerning that it's still this
Speaker 3: cold and you know, we're seeing you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: we're up to ten homicides already this year. That's certainly concerning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how do we compare it to other cities, like like,
Speaker 1: for example, Cleveland or maybe Columbus.
Speaker 3: You know, it's ironic. I was reading an article and
Speaker 3: talked to the Columbus e FIP president who's a friend
Speaker 3: of mine, and Columbus so far this year, which is
Speaker 3: almost twice the size of Cincinnati and typically is much
Speaker 3: more violent, and they're actually they have a big reduction
Speaker 3: in homicides already. I mean they have six. We're at ten.
Speaker 3: That is certainly a troubling trend. I'm not sure what
Speaker 3: to attribute it to, but it is certainly concerning that
Speaker 3: city half the size of Columbus is almost doubling them
Speaker 3: in homicides already this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're metro areas that were huge, Our birds are bigger,
Speaker 1: but the sides of the city itself is massive, and
Speaker 1: they've had ten. Yeah, and I look at it, go wow,
Speaker 1: what's causing this? Because you really have to work hard
Speaker 1: to get out in this cold weather. Generally the cold
Speaker 1: scarce street crime away naturally, But you have a fear
Speaker 1: once it starts to warm up and we get into
Speaker 1: the summer celebration season that we might see a very
Speaker 1: bloody summer. It doesn't mean that that's not going to
Speaker 1: reverse course, but it certainly is something we should be
Speaker 1: looking at.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you know, and it's I've talked about this
Speaker 3: at nauseum now and how the court system is not
Speaker 3: doing anything to protect the community. I just had an
Speaker 3: officer call me this past week and was just furious.
Speaker 3: He had a court case where a young man driving
Speaker 3: drunk hits and kills somebody aggravated the hicular homicide, literally
Speaker 3: kills somebody driving a car, and he ends up getting
Speaker 3: six months at River City in a three years of probation.
Speaker 3: I mean literally a slap on the rift. You know,
Speaker 3: I spent a couple of years in our traffic unit
Speaker 3: back in the early two thousands where if you got
Speaker 3: to candiction for an aggravated vik kio homicide, you took
Speaker 3: somebody's life because you were drunk. You were high whatever else.
Speaker 3: You were looking at minimum five six years in prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now.
Speaker 3: Six months, six months, and this person's going to be
Speaker 3: back running around on the streets. You know, when there
Speaker 3: are no consequences for your actions. This is exactly what
Speaker 3: we're seeing. I mean, people are just going to continue
Speaker 3: to shoot each other because they're not fearing any kind
Speaker 3: of consequence.
Speaker 1: Well, no question, we saw the his name was Robert Shaw.
Speaker 1: He was charged with murder in the drive by shooting.
Speaker 1: They killed Justin Johnson when Thursday Night football was in
Speaker 1: town last year was the Bengals the imaginery right in
Speaker 1: front the in between tabern This guys, weren't an ankle
Speaker 1: monitor for charges considering a concealed weapon I legal gun possession,
Speaker 1: a gun under disability. He got a twenty thousand dollars bond,
Speaker 1: paid ten percent of that in electronic monitoring. Back in
Speaker 1: June or a few you know, he's around shooting people
Speaker 1: with an ankle monitor on. We also recall the pivotal
Speaker 1: moment at Fountain Square where Shaquille Ferguson said it was
Speaker 1: dell self defense. The people he shot through the window
Speaker 1: of Citybird Chicken were actually armed and pointing a gun
Speaker 1: at him and that's know where people are around on
Speaker 1: Fountain Square. He was put on probation a month before
Speaker 1: for a violent crime. Is this whole narrative with judges
Speaker 1: being two lax and also the enforcement and getting people
Speaker 1: off the streets who are in violation of breaking or
Speaker 1: wearing their ankle monitor outside the alerts go off. Have
Speaker 1: we got any better about that since the summer?
Speaker 3: No? I think you look at Cincinnati wanted to be
Speaker 3: a sanctuary city. Apparently the Hamilton County Courthouse he's become
Speaker 3: a sanctuary for criminals. There's just no accountability. And as
Speaker 3: long as we continue to see that no accountability, you know,
Speaker 3: if there's no consequences, people are going to go out
Speaker 3: and do whatever they want. They're going to commit violent
Speaker 3: crime knowing that they're going to be right back out,
Speaker 3: and that's exactly what we're seeing.
Speaker 2: Why do you think judges aren't listening to this outcraft
Speaker 2: from the public.
Speaker 3: I think some of these judges they ran on this,
Speaker 3: they ran on bail reform, they ran on making sure
Speaker 3: that you know, there's this social justice, all of these things,
Speaker 3: so they're not being shy about it. And it's what
Speaker 3: the County's voting for you know, we had some fantastic
Speaker 3: judges that have recently been you know, kicked out of
Speaker 3: office in exchange for judges who have said, no, we
Speaker 3: want lower no bail, or we're doing cashlest bail. We're
Speaker 3: doing all these things. So it's exactly what they're saying
Speaker 3: they want to do, and for whatever reason, the people
Speaker 3: in the county are going for this, and it's just
Speaker 3: it's making this county much more dangerous and it's going
Speaker 3: to continue to.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you know, the county can cover continues
Speaker 1: to vote and look look at it, you know, despite
Speaker 1: the problems with Terry Sigi. And we'll get into that
Speaker 1: in just a second. Ball these things and at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, we just elected all the people
Speaker 1: that had a hand on this.
Speaker 2: To begin with.
Speaker 1: It's not a concern for the resident Cincinnati. Why should
Speaker 1: it be concerned for you?
Speaker 3: Then one might ask, well, and that's that's the hard
Speaker 3: part is because you know, every police officer, like myself
Speaker 3: swore took an oath to protect the communities we serve.
Speaker 3: And it's extremely frustrating when you have officers that are
Speaker 3: going out doing great work getting guns off the street,
Speaker 3: you know, getting violent as thunders off the street.
Speaker 2: Only to be let out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I'm quite honestly, I am surprised that
Speaker 3: the doors in the courthouse haven't come off the tracks
Speaker 3: because the door is revolving so quickly. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 3: it's it's ridiculous and it's frustrating to see that it's
Speaker 3: going on, and it makes cops feel helpless a lot
Speaker 3: of times.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ken Cober, president of the Quincity Lodge FOP, on the
Speaker 1: show this morning on seven hundred WLW and talking about
Speaker 1: the shooting last night. We have a steady state of
Speaker 1: shootings here on North Side, and you look at that
Speaker 1: one in particular, Ken, that's troubling because there's a business owner.
Speaker 1: I was watching the news last night, I think it
Speaker 1: was five and this guy owns an appliance place and
Speaker 1: it's in front of his building shot up. He said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not the first time he goes. I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: moving off the main strip out of the way. You know,
Speaker 1: here's a community like Norriside. Generally there's some crime there,
Speaker 1: but it's not like the areas that typically we see
Speaker 1: when when it's started, when bullets start flying around there
Speaker 1: and people going hey, listen, I'm out. That should be
Speaker 1: a wake up call to those leading our city.
Speaker 3: You would think you would think the elected leaders would
Speaker 3: look at this and that businesses are frustrated, citizens are frustrated,
Speaker 3: the police are frustrated. Maybe we should change our ideology.
Speaker 3: But then again, you continue to get re elected. So apparently,
Speaker 3: you know the people that are speaking out about crime,
Speaker 3: the people that are speaking out against the violence, or
Speaker 3: maybe the minority of their voters.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't either. I mean I get it.
Speaker 1: We have to look at you know, we're locking people
Speaker 1: up from marijuana possession and stuff like that, and clearly
Speaker 1: that was that was wrongheaded. And now we're talking about
Speaker 1: expunging records and banning the box. I have no problem
Speaker 1: with that. But when someone picks up the gun and
Speaker 1: commission of a crime of a violent felony, and then
Speaker 1: they get released on their own recognizance to go out
Speaker 1: and do it again, they completely thumb their nose at
Speaker 1: the system. I mean, you're past the point of reform.
Speaker 1: I would think at that case, if you didn't learn
Speaker 1: your lesson the first time, why are we giving you
Speaker 1: a second chance. I think that's fair. I think most
Speaker 1: people in Cincinnati's voters look at that and go, yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems about right. If you're going to be a
Speaker 1: predator with a weapon and you don't get the message
Speaker 1: the first time, and you do it literally while you're
Speaker 1: well you got you walked out of course, someone just
Speaker 1: we're on the right cown walked out of court basically
Speaker 1: and reviolated after promising they'd get a job and be
Speaker 1: on community controlling all these wonderful things they promised.
Speaker 2: A judge, I'm sorry when you break it. I don't
Speaker 2: think there should be a third chance.
Speaker 3: No, I completely agree, I absolutely agree with you. And
Speaker 3: unfortunately that is not the ideology of many of these
Speaker 3: judges in Hamilton County. And there is going to be
Speaker 3: a direct correlation between a bloody summer and you know,
Speaker 3: these criminals not being held accountable. We're going to see
Speaker 3: a time and time again. I mean you look at
Speaker 3: you know, just just from the city aspect, you know,
Speaker 3: they just re elected all the city council, you know,
Speaker 3: the mayor. Yeah, they has said look, we're this is
Speaker 3: we're all for cashlest batil, we're all for our bonds,
Speaker 3: and they vote them. So it's clearly this is what
Speaker 3: they want. Yeah, so this is what they're gonna get.
Speaker 2: This is the effect of that too.
Speaker 1: And it's certainly not everyone, but it's enough towards a
Speaker 1: steady drum beat. And the crime numbers are going back
Speaker 1: up again a very very small sample, and you're talking
Speaker 1: in different like seven last year and ten this year,
Speaker 1: but still it's not the right trajectory and it's not
Speaker 1: a good look for these folks. I'll also ask too
Speaker 1: that you know, if if all of this stuff about
Speaker 1: getting rid of Terry Thiji was driven by the rise
Speaker 1: and crime, the problem if the numbers are going back
Speaker 1: up again, is this all on Terry Thigi? And not
Speaker 1: only that the fact of the matters. I think the
Speaker 1: Inquirer just did a piece on this the other day, going,
Speaker 1: what what is good? The contract's going to expire with
Speaker 1: the local law firm? What' taft? In literally just a
Speaker 1: week or so that said, Hey, we got to get
Speaker 1: this thing wrapped up. And there's still nothing coming out
Speaker 1: about She's still the chief technically and Henny is still
Speaker 1: the interim chief. That doesn't look like it's changed anytime soon.
Speaker 1: I meant, how much longer do you have to investigate
Speaker 1: to find out why you fired her in the first place.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 3: Trying blame in the chief of police for crime is
Speaker 3: like blaming McDonald's for somebody being obese. It's it's nonsense.
Speaker 3: You know, there's only so many things a police chief
Speaker 3: can do. There's only so much that the police can do. There.
Speaker 3: We're one hundred and forty and fifty officers short camp everywhere.
Speaker 3: At the same time, you know, at some point there's
Speaker 3: going to have to be a culture shift within the
Speaker 3: city of Cincinnati to say, you know what, we're we're
Speaker 3: going to find a way to resolve our differences instead
Speaker 3: of picking up a gun because.
Speaker 2: We're upset with somebody.
Speaker 3: And until that changes, you know, we're we're going to
Speaker 3: see kind of the same thing and then until judges
Speaker 3: decide you know what, if you're carrying a gun and
Speaker 3: you're committing a violent crime, you're going to go to
Speaker 3: prison and you're going to go there for a long time.
Speaker 3: Until those things change and it's actually publicized. Yeah, I'd
Speaker 3: love to see the headlines of you know, the latest
Speaker 3: homicide suspect, you know is going to spend the next
Speaker 3: thirty years in prison for taking somebody's life. Now, that
Speaker 3: might actually get somebody's attention. But until then, all of
Speaker 3: these headlines of you know, four people shot here, two
Speaker 3: people shot here, it's almost become just like background noise.
Speaker 3: I think people are so desensitized to you, oh, they're
Speaker 3: like heah, they wake up and see there's oh, big surprise,
Speaker 3: there's another shooting in Cincinnati, and somehow it's become acceptable.
Speaker 3: And until that changes, until that mindset changes of look,
Speaker 3: we actually value human life and we're not going to
Speaker 3: tolerate this nonsense. And it starts with elected officials, it
Speaker 3: starts with these judges. Until those things change, you're going
Speaker 3: to continue to see the same thing over and over.
Speaker 1: Well, relative to the Chief Biji investigation, that she's still
Speaker 1: hanging and twisting in the wind because she is technically
Speaker 1: not fired, well, not fired at all, because we've got
Speaker 1: to find an investigation as to why we fired in
Speaker 1: the first place. I think does that hamstring things for
Speaker 1: you in a sense that you know we've got well,
Speaker 1: we've got to do more research to find out why
Speaker 1: we fired in the first place. That's not a good
Speaker 1: I don't think that sits well. And maybe they just
Speaker 1: hope we forget about it. But the other element of
Speaker 1: this is Adam Henny, who through all in accounts that
Speaker 1: I here is a good guy. He just how much
Speaker 1: juice could he have if he's still the interim chief.
Speaker 3: You're absolutely correct, you know, it's doing a disservice to him.
Speaker 3: It's doing a disservice to all the other men and
Speaker 3: women that wear this uniform that we're all just kind
Speaker 3: of in limbo right now. It's like, okay, well, you know,
Speaker 3: he's the interim chief, so there's some changes that he
Speaker 3: can make, but any any change of any real, real,
Speaker 3: uh substance isn't going to happen until we have a
Speaker 3: permanent chief, and I understand that, but we're just going
Speaker 3: to keep on dragging this along. You know, who knows
Speaker 3: what's going to happen at the end of this month,
Speaker 3: and then you know, where do we go from there?
Speaker 3: Are they gonna are they going to bring her back
Speaker 3: or are they going to say, say, well, you know, Adams
Speaker 3: now the chief who knows well? But this this just
Speaker 3: keeps on dragging.
Speaker 1: It's also not unlike the uh you know what happened
Speaker 1: over the summer too, with the big fight downtown after
Speaker 1: the music festival and like that case just simply no
Speaker 1: one's talking about.
Speaker 2: It's just simply evaporated, like we're waiting for, you know,
Speaker 2: the testament.
Speaker 1: It came out from the prosecutor off I was like, well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the racial beatdown that we thought it was.
Speaker 1: Actually the white guy was a victim. And ever since then,
Speaker 1: the people who have called for you know, the heads
Speaker 1: of white people, essentially we've got to prosecute this guy,
Speaker 1: like everybody else turns out there now no one's talking about.
Speaker 1: It's just still like simply I've never seen a case
Speaker 1: that big go away and literally in the corners of
Speaker 1: hushed conversations around the city, that's all you hear. But
Speaker 1: no one's talking about that either. It's I wouldn't call
Speaker 1: it a conspiracy or cover up, because you can't do that.
Speaker 1: But I think the THEIJI case in this are remarkably
Speaker 1: similar is that it doesn't fit the narrative and kind
Speaker 1: of made it go away.
Speaker 3: Well sure, you know, they put they put the cart
Speaker 3: before the horse, and then all of a sudden, now
Speaker 3: they're trying to backtrack and figure ot, okay, what do
Speaker 3: we do now? We put ourselves in a bad, bad
Speaker 3: predicament and what do we do now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Also with the cameras, right, we had to
Speaker 1: for the first shooting at the Laura Playground a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, the cry was, hey, we're gonna put
Speaker 1: cameras all over. Well we didn't do that, and another
Speaker 1: eleven year old died in New Year's Day and still
Speaker 1: there was no you know, it's confusing, it's contradictory. We're
Speaker 1: getting you know, double speak. And I don't know are
Speaker 1: the cameras going up? But I thought I saw they were,
Speaker 1: but I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's ironically enough, Chief kind of put together a
Speaker 3: group of police officers that this isn't really their job
Speaker 3: to be doing these things, but most of them have
Speaker 3: a really substantial IT background and know how to do
Speaker 3: these that they've actually taken from their assignments, put them
Speaker 3: in a group together and have been going out and
Speaker 3: installing cameras. This has typically not been the job of
Speaker 3: sworn officers, but they're making it work, and I know
Speaker 3: a lot of it has been done very quickly.
Speaker 2: They've worked a lot.
Speaker 3: Of hours to try to get all these cameras functioning
Speaker 3: and to take the new cameras that they have and
Speaker 3: get them up yeah, but while that's being done, then
Speaker 3: their normal job is suffering just because you know, they
Speaker 3: can't obviously can't be two places at the same time.
Speaker 3: So I mean, they're just trying to make it work
Speaker 3: with what the resources that they have, which it is
Speaker 3: certainly admirable that they're getting it done.
Speaker 2: All right, we'll leave it there.
Speaker 1: Wad a shooting on Valentine's Day and a party bus,
Speaker 1: one dead, one wounded. Sunday morning, one forty North Side,
Speaker 1: gun play breaks out for in a club, bullets flying
Speaker 1: over the street. Some of the buildings themselves and storefronts
Speaker 1: are hit with you can just see the broken glass
Speaker 1: and the remains of the shooting itself. To what two
Speaker 1: people killed, two injured there. And then last night they
Speaker 1: found a body of a female dumped at Lynn and
Speaker 1: Poplar Street. So the bloody cold weather, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense, but we're starting to see
Speaker 1: a spike in these violent crimes and murders despite the
Speaker 1: fact we've had an extremely cold strutch normally that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: It makes it.
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to ask, well, crap, if it's
Speaker 1: this cold and the weather's is bad and there's still
Speaker 1: We're still seeing a rate of homicides increasing over the
Speaker 1: first two months of the year. That begs the question, well,
Speaker 1: what about when it gets warmer? Are we in for
Speaker 1: a bloody summer? We hope not, and hopefully we'll find
Speaker 1: a way through this. Ken Coober, president of the Queen
Speaker 1: City Lodge FOP, thanks again for jumping on this morning.
Speaker 1: Brother appreciates you be well, sure appreciate take care. We
Speaker 1: got to get a news update in the very latest
Speaker 1: with the weather situation.
Speaker 2: What's warming up now?
Speaker 1: It feels great outside, but we got a lot of
Speaker 1: fog again this morning, and of course the passing of
Speaker 1: Jesse Jackson making news today dead at the age of
Speaker 1: eighty four. Scotts Loan show. This is seven hundred w