Speaker 1: Billy Cunningham, the Great America.
Speaker 2: We've heard from judges now in Hamilton County and also
Speaker 2: later on. We have the scheduled anyway, Britney Ruby to
Speaker 2: come on. I talked to her this morning at length.
Speaker 2: Scheduled to come on about two o'clock today. We also
Speaker 2: have Supreme Court Justice show deaters coming on. We have
Speaker 2: everyone coming on, including the junior senator from the great
Speaker 2: state of Ohio, Senator John Houston, who's busy in Washington,
Speaker 2: not too busy with the government shutdown. A senator, I
Speaker 2: saw you a week ago presiding in the Senate, and
Speaker 2: I felt particularly proud you were trying to get the
Speaker 2: government shutdown to conclude, but the Democrats won't do that.
Speaker 2: Before we talk about the government shutdown, what is your
Speaker 2: perception of what's happening now in the city of Cincinnati
Speaker 2: and what role, if any, can the state and or
Speaker 2: the Feds play in bringing peace to River City.
Speaker 3: Well, Bill's great to be with you. It's an unfortunate thing,
Speaker 3: because I say this about cities. Your number one job
Speaker 3: when you're the mayor, the chief of police the city
Speaker 3: council is protect people and their property. If you fail
Speaker 3: to do that, you fail to do that fundamental thing,
Speaker 3: then people will not visit your city, people will not
Speaker 3: invest there, people will leave, people businesses will move out
Speaker 3: of your downtown, your area. And it's harming, and it
Speaker 3: harms the people of your city the most because not
Speaker 3: only does it make them unsafe, but it also makes
Speaker 3: it weakened and economically weakens your your city. And the
Speaker 3: only ex I mean, you tell me what the explanation
Speaker 3: is to this, but why wouldn't you have a police
Speaker 3: there all the time, over time showing the presidence and
Speaker 3: basically saying, no, a heart of our central business district,
Speaker 3: entertainment district, it will be safe. We invite the world
Speaker 3: to come to Cincinnati because it's the safest city. Instead,
Speaker 3: it's becoming a very dangerous city.
Speaker 1: Center of the call that was in effect.
Speaker 2: PNG is grossly expanding its footprint in Mason. They're getting
Speaker 2: prepared to downsize their facilities. You know Macy's has moved out,
Speaker 2: is not going to become try to become apartment buildings.
Speaker 2: Most of the large businesses in Cincinnati have their own
Speaker 2: police department because they can't trust the city. I am
Speaker 2: told the chief of police THIJI is about to become
Speaker 2: the fall guy. She's about to get a copy of
Speaker 2: the home game. Because the mayor's policies don't work. The
Speaker 2: mayor did a big news conference. I'm not sure you
Speaker 2: were there, but the governor was there, the FBI was there,
Speaker 2: the Department of Treasury was there, the US Marshall was there,
Speaker 2: County prosecutors there, County sheriff was there, accepting state help
Speaker 2: that never arrived because the mayor and share along the
Speaker 2: city manager, it never triggered it by requesting it. And
Speaker 2: when you look at the memorandum of understanding, it involved
Speaker 2: two shifts a month having the state involved. And now
Speaker 2: after yesterday's news conference, it appears the city they finally
Speaker 2: have said to the county and to the state, we
Speaker 2: need help get it done. We can't fix the roads.
Speaker 2: We have potholes everywhere, Bridges are falling down, and the
Speaker 2: police force does not listen greatly to the chief of police, order,
Speaker 2: the mayor, order the city manager. That's another complete different issue.
Speaker 2: We have car break ins. We have more than twenty
Speaker 2: thousand shots fired every year rattling around Cincinnati. We're gonna
Speaker 2: have about four hundred people shot. We're gona have about
Speaker 2: one hundred people murdered. We're gonna have about two thousand
Speaker 2: cars stolen and about fifteen thousand car break ins. And
Speaker 2: you know, John, excuse me, senator, Cincinnati is like seven
Speaker 2: miles by eight miles.
Speaker 1: It's small.
Speaker 2: The public school system has forty six percent of the
Speaker 2: children are chronically absent, and if you're a black boy,
Speaker 2: you're chronically absent seventy one percent of the time. On
Speaker 2: top of all this, we have two thousand kids in
Speaker 2: foster care. We have a complete meltdown of the institutions,
Speaker 2: and Corporate America is voting with their moving truck to
Speaker 2: get out of downtown Cincinnati. What role, if any, could
Speaker 2: then national Guard play. I know that was a topic
Speaker 2: and the mayor debate, and you're kind of in charge
Speaker 2: of that in a sense. What role does a National
Speaker 2: Guard play to bring order to our city?
Speaker 3: Well, Bill, look, you needn't look very far away. Cleveland, Ohio.
Speaker 3: The governor just sent a special violent crime reduction unit
Speaker 3: to Cleveland with the Highway Patrol and in one weekend
Speaker 3: they captured five eight eight felony arrests, six illegal firearms recovered, okay,
Speaker 3: and they captured a guy who was part of a
Speaker 3: mass shooting last year. Okay, and and like literally this
Speaker 3: was in one weekend when when the city of Cleveland
Speaker 3: finally relented and said, hey, we're going to accept help
Speaker 3: from the Highway Patrol. The governor sent him in and
Speaker 3: they captured all of these people who've been terrorized in
Speaker 3: the community. You can do the same thing in Cincinnati.
Speaker 3: It's just that you need to have a mayor and
Speaker 3: a chief of police who are will to let it happen.
Speaker 3: That you can do this with law enforcement. The challenge
Speaker 3: for the National Guard is that they don't have they
Speaker 3: don't have the ability to arrest people. They can protect,
Speaker 3: they can create a presence, but they don't have they
Speaker 3: don't have law enforcement powers. That's why sending in the
Speaker 3: highway Patrol is a better way to do it, because
Speaker 3: they can arrest people, they can coordinate with law enforcement,
Speaker 3: and they can clean up the streets. But you've got
Speaker 3: to have local leaders who will do.
Speaker 1: This didn't happen.
Speaker 2: We had this big news conference a month ago, it
Speaker 2: didn't happen. Had another one yesterday and and what's our
Speaker 2: chief of police looked in the camera and told her
Speaker 2: officers in uniform what to do. She didn't tell them
Speaker 2: she told the news media, and she says, if you're
Speaker 2: committing crime in Cincinnati, we will confront you.
Speaker 1: We will confront you.
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking confront me, and I want someone to
Speaker 2: be arrested.
Speaker 1: We have I will.
Speaker 3: Arrest you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of
Speaker 3: the law and get you off of our streets, probably
Speaker 3: to protect businesses and do the thing that we need
Speaker 3: to keep people safe. That's what she needs to say.
Speaker 2: No, we're gonna confront you, and I have, you know,
Speaker 2: the county corner last meet some markets.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe they could maybe they could have admonished them to.
Speaker 2: You're gonna get You're gonna get time out in the corner.
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, she says, we will confront you.
Speaker 2: And if I'm a gangbanger with guns and I'm selling drugs,
Speaker 2: breaking into cars and god knows, burglarizing, I have the
Speaker 2: chief of police who looks like she belongs on a
Speaker 2: can of Dutch Boy paint, who's telling me I'm gonna
Speaker 2: confront you. It's like confront We have open air drug use,
Speaker 2: marijuana frequently being smoked, and I hope the President doesn't
Speaker 2: do much with that, by the way, because it's gone
Speaker 2: into the children. We have open air drug markets, we
Speaker 2: have homeless encampments, we have car break ins, we have
Speaker 2: people getting shot on Fountain Square. And the chief police says,
Speaker 2: you will be confronted.
Speaker 1: What why you got me?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: I'm good, Now, I'm good. I'm good.
Speaker 3: Bill. I talked to some Cincinnati officers recently and I
Speaker 3: asked this question. I said, I said, look what happens
Speaker 3: when you arrest people, because it's more than just it's
Speaker 3: more than just the law enforcements. And then you send
Speaker 3: them to court. Are they putting them away? Are they
Speaker 3: Are they taking the criminals off the street and putting
Speaker 3: them in jail? And one officer told me a story
Speaker 3: that there's a gas station a corner where there's constantly fights,
Speaker 3: there's constantly drug deals going on. They arrest, they arrest them,
Speaker 3: they take them to jail, and when less than twenty
Speaker 3: four hours, they're back on the streets. So the criminals
Speaker 3: know that you develop a culture in your city based
Speaker 3: on whether you're tough on crime or you're weak on crime.
Speaker 3: And once the criminals know that there are no consequences
Speaker 3: for committing crimes, guess what they commit the crimes And
Speaker 3: that's the culture that's being developed that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 2: The Shell station on Central Parkway is the site of
Speaker 2: massive drug sales captured on video on a daily basis,
Speaker 2: and there are no arrests. When I talked to Ken
Speaker 2: Cooper of the FOP, they tell me we have the
Speaker 2: indirect message not to arrest people unless it's required, because
Speaker 2: Scottie Johnson and others on city council don't want to
Speaker 2: go hands on with someone. If you go hands on,
Speaker 2: you might have an incident, you might have a warrant,
Speaker 2: you might find out he's got a gun. We don't
Speaker 2: pull people over for speeding reckless operation because we have
Speaker 2: speed bumps. The speed bumps take the place more que
Speaker 2: the speed bumps because the city council doesn't want police
Speaker 2: to pull somebody over, run their warrants. Okay, you don't
Speaker 2: have a license, they don't have insurance, their car's not registered,
Speaker 2: got guns there. They don't want that to happen. So
Speaker 2: we have speed bumps instead of cops. And on that point,
Speaker 2: about an hour ago ahead on Judge Josh Berkowitz, who's
Speaker 2: the presiding judge in Hamley County Municipal Court, he put
Speaker 2: the cheese on the Cracker. He said, half the judges
Speaker 2: in my court believe in restorative justice. So I say
Speaker 2: to him, Okay, I think I know what is restorative justice.
Speaker 2: If you're a judge that the fact is, it needs
Speaker 2: to restore justice to the criminal. A many times the
Speaker 2: so called black community, the great majority of black kids
Speaker 2: have nothing to do with crime. But the face in
Speaker 2: Cincinnati is a black male face. And so if you
Speaker 2: come out of the restorative justice movement, you believe in
Speaker 2: no cash bonds, and you believe that putting a kid
Speaker 2: in jail for that child is worse than the victim
Speaker 2: penalty inflicted upon the victim. We have a juvenile court judge,
Speaker 2: Carrie Bloom, who's given talks on this subject and what
Speaker 2: she says in juvenile court, I do not want to
Speaker 2: put black kids in jail. It's reparations, it's about slavery,
Speaker 2: it's about affirmative action, it's about DEEO. I don't want
Speaker 2: to put black kids in jail. And she said, by
Speaker 2: the way, a white female. But nonetheless she says, half
Speaker 2: the judges in Amita County do not sentence anyone to jail.
Speaker 2: We have another good judge, a friend of mine, Alison
Speaker 2: Hathaway who released some eighteen and a half year old
Speaker 2: on a gun charge. She reduced it, and then six
Speaker 2: weeks later he kills sixteen year old on OTR on
Speaker 2: her watch. And now that kid's going to face life imprisonment.
Speaker 2: So what do you do, Senator, If half the judges
Speaker 2: or more in Hamley County do not want to sentence
Speaker 2: anybody to jail and don't want to lock them up,
Speaker 2: They want them all along the streets, what do you
Speaker 2: say about that one?
Speaker 3: They got to go to them out. That's what you
Speaker 3: gotta do with people to do that. Bill is pretty
Speaker 3: this is pretty simple. It's not the people. We've got
Speaker 3: to start emphathizing with the victims and not the criminals. Okay,
Speaker 3: the victims of these crimes are in many cases, people
Speaker 3: who live in who live in the city. They're typically
Speaker 3: not visitors. There are people who call Cincinnati home, and
Speaker 3: you're not protecting the innocent people of Cincinnati from the
Speaker 3: criminals in Cincinnati. And it doesn't take much. You start
Speaker 3: arresting people for committing crimes and put them in jail,
Speaker 3: and that will send a message to other people's do
Speaker 3: not do this. It will act as a deterrent. But
Speaker 3: right now, if you send the message that if you
Speaker 3: commit a crime there will be no consequences, that is
Speaker 3: an incentive. That is that is basically saying, go ahead
Speaker 3: and commit crimes in Cincinnati. I wish it, I wish it.
Speaker 3: I wish admonishment and stern warnings were enough in the world.
Speaker 4: But they're not confrontations. We're going to confront you. We're
Speaker 4: going to confront on accountability. And that means that every
Speaker 4: once in a while. That means that every once in
Speaker 4: a while somebody is unfortunately going to go to jail
Speaker 4: and going to go to prison. But that sends the
Speaker 4: message that that behavior will not be tolerant, tolerated. It
Speaker 4: becomes a community standard in which people follow it. Community
Speaker 4: standards are set by your leadership, your leadership and the
Speaker 4: law enforcement and your judges. And if they don't set
Speaker 4: a community standard that crime will not be tolerated, then
Speaker 4: they will set a community standard by default that crime
Speaker 4: will be tolerated.
Speaker 2: Before we talk about the government shutdown, two different judges
Speaker 2: have told me that after a peer of all the
Speaker 2: mayor at these endorsement opportunities for their democratic liberal judges
Speaker 2: would always ask the question do you believe in restorative justice?
Speaker 2: Do you believe in no cash bonds? And do you
Speaker 2: believe in treatment and lieu of incarceration? Unless the judges answer,
Speaker 2: I believe in all those things. Af ted piroval and
Speaker 2: the Hamilty County Democratic Party you want not get the endorsement,
Speaker 2: and so on the bench. Now we have restorative justice
Speaker 2: thirty and forty year old, largely females who came out
Speaker 2: of the movement of jails or a waste of time,
Speaker 2: that jails hurt inmates more than they assist, and that
Speaker 2: we believe in restorative justice, and therefore we won't send
Speaker 2: people to jail.
Speaker 1: And the Hamony Counties.
Speaker 2: You know, right now, Senator Hamilty County is teetering to
Speaker 2: becoming Chicago.
Speaker 3: Bi sorative justice. I mean, that's a nice thing to say.
Speaker 3: You know, where you restore justice, you get people off
Speaker 3: the streets, you give justice to the victims. Okay, first
Speaker 3: of all, and you know what we do in our prisons.
Speaker 3: We give people a chance to rehabilitate themselves. It's a
Speaker 3: department of rehabilitations corrections. And once you're in prison, you
Speaker 3: can go still earn credentials to get a job. You
Speaker 3: can do all these things while you're in prison, but
Speaker 3: you're off the streets keeping people safe when that's happening.
Speaker 3: That's how you restore somebody. You say, there's a consequence
Speaker 3: if you don't behave We'll give you a chance when
Speaker 3: you get out of here to go to work, because
Speaker 3: we're going to help you get a job skill. But
Speaker 3: you're not going to be committing crimes on our street
Speaker 3: and making victor and we're going to protect the victims.
Speaker 3: We're going to protect the standard of what it means.
Speaker 3: That's that's the way you do restorative justice.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, Senator, we have the government we deserve and we
Speaker 2: don't deserve. If you keep voting for the same individuals
Speaker 2: anticipating a different result, nothing's going to change. About a
Speaker 2: minute remaining, can you give us an update on the
Speaker 2: government shutdown which Chuck Schumer demands to occur. It's happening,
Speaker 2: Republicans say a clean cr Democrats won one point five
Speaker 2: trillion dollars, are more spending.
Speaker 1: Give us an update on the shutdown.
Speaker 3: The Schumer shutdown continues. We're going to vote again today.
Speaker 3: This will be the ninth time that I will have
Speaker 3: voted to keep the government open, clean cr keep funding
Speaker 3: at the current levels. But Chuck Schumer, he really exposed
Speaker 3: himself last week literally in the sense that he said, well,
Speaker 3: every day that the government shut down goes on, it's
Speaker 3: better for us, meaning Democrats. Well, you know what, that
Speaker 3: really exposes his motivation because it's really about politics to him.
Speaker 3: It's not the American people. It's not about whether our
Speaker 3: military get paid. It's not whether our air traffic controllers
Speaker 3: get paid. It's not whether our first responders get paid.
Speaker 3: It's whether Chuck Schumer can score political points and keep
Speaker 3: his job because he's scared of AOC running against him
Speaker 3: in the primary in New York. And so we're being
Speaker 3: run by the radical left here in this nation right now.
Speaker 3: Because it requires sixty votes in the US Senate to
Speaker 3: get the government back open. We've had three Democrats vote
Speaker 3: with us. We just need five more. But we will
Speaker 3: not relent. We're not going to give in to him
Speaker 3: wanting to fund health care for illegal immigrants. We're not
Speaker 3: going to give in to his massive spending proposals. We're
Speaker 3: gonna going to do this the right way. We're going
Speaker 3: to remain strong.
Speaker 2: As long as it takes. But I hope things change
Speaker 2: in Cincinnati. We have an election in two and a
Speaker 2: half weeks, and if you don't change direction, you'll get
Speaker 2: more of the same.
Speaker 1: Senator John, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Bill, just just quickly. If you don't protect
Speaker 3: people and their property, they're gonna leave. They're gonna leave Cincinnati,
Speaker 3: businesses will leave, people won't comfort to use your restaurants.
Speaker 3: And you've got to restore public order and protect the
Speaker 3: people of Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: You know, Senator after a peer of all gives mouth
Speaker 2: service to that. He always talks. My job one two
Speaker 2: and three is public safety, and if that's his job
Speaker 2: one two and three, he needs to be unemployed. So
Speaker 2: Senator John used to get my best everyone in Washington,
Speaker 2: and thanks for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, John, Senator, thanks you, Bill, I thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, let's continue with more. It's up to you.
Speaker 2: The truth will set you free. Voting for the same
Speaker 2: anticipating different result as the definition of stupidity. Bill Cunningham
Speaker 2: Radio seven hundred WW