Speaker 1: By Billy Cunningham, the Great American. Welcome this Monday afternoon
Speaker 1: the tri State. Lots of stuff going on. U see's
Speaker 1: playing no better, in fact, maybe worse. Xavior beat Providence
Speaker 1: the Friars. When you beat up the Friars, that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a good thing. But Xavior's on the uptick. You
Speaker 1: see on the downtick. And now Tony Pike tells me
Speaker 1: the UC football team as a wide receiver from the
Speaker 1: College of Mines. Understand they deal with coal and mining
Speaker 1: and spelunking activities in West Virginia. So the UC football
Speaker 1: team's in trouble. But until then, your friend and mine
Speaker 1: is Ken Cober, the president of the CEO and the
Speaker 1: head of the Union Lodge sixty nine. Since night, Police
Speaker 1: and Ken Cober, welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show.
Speaker 1: And first of all, I want to reference this article
Speaker 1: you put out on the date of January the eighth,
Speaker 1: in which you claim to secretly pay the family of
Speaker 1: cop killer Rodney Hinton potentially millions of dollars. Now Fanon Rucker,
Speaker 1: who purports to be the attorney for the family, denies
Speaker 1: it in a way but not really allegedly. In about
Speaker 1: an hour about one o'clock today, there will be a
Speaker 1: secret session on City Council indicating whether the council will
Speaker 1: pay the hint and family millions of dollars. So, before
Speaker 1: we get in more of the facts, people may have
Speaker 1: forgotten what happened several months back. What degree do you
Speaker 1: think of a probability as city council in about an
Speaker 1: hour going to negotiate a million dollar settlement when it
Speaker 1: appears that two councilmen has come out against it. However,
Speaker 1: it appears Fanon Rutger, the lawyer, indicats he may don't
Speaker 1: know anything about it. Where are your sources, Ken Cobra,
Speaker 1: and where do we go from here?
Speaker 2: Well, I got sources inside city Hall that are saying
Speaker 2: that this is absolutely going on. And if you read
Speaker 2: what City Manager Cheryl Long said, she didn't deny that
Speaker 2: there were negotiations going on. She's saying that there's no
Speaker 2: agreement that's been reached, which is nonsense because I know
Speaker 2: that there's a tentative agreement. She could play on words
Speaker 2: of saying, well, we don't have an agreement, Well, you
Speaker 2: have a tentative agreement. But the reality is they're negotiating
Speaker 2: with this family and you know, I believe that not
Speaker 2: only the council members that have come out, but there
Speaker 2: are more council members that are completely against this as well.
Speaker 1: This happened, Honor, about April to thirtieth. Let's go back
Speaker 1: in time a little bit. And as I recall, the
Speaker 1: young man that was killed to just turn eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: his name was Ryan Hinton. He and his he and
Speaker 1: his May used the word gang, were stealing cars and
Speaker 1: then either chopping them up or use them for robberies.
Speaker 1: His other partners who are a guy named Jarrell Austin
Speaker 1: and de Anthony Bullocks and Sincere Grigsby. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure the status of those other three individuals. But tell
Speaker 1: the American people what Ryan Hinton did, Honor about May
Speaker 1: April thirtieth, May first that caused this caused his own death.
Speaker 2: Well, he had officers that located as stolen vehicle. You
Speaker 2: have the the rear of an apartment complex. And you know,
Speaker 2: unfortunately Ryan Hitton got out of the vehicle to run
Speaker 2: from the police with a gun in his hand, dropped
Speaker 2: the gun and then picked it up. As he's running
Speaker 2: towards officers, points a gun at an officer and you know,
Speaker 2: the officer did what he had to do to defend
Speaker 2: his life, and unfortunately the result of that was Ryan
Speaker 2: Hinton was killed.
Speaker 1: And the basis of the lawsuit would be what because,
Speaker 1: as I recall, Connie Pillage, the new county prosecutor, said,
Speaker 1: this was a justified shooting. The only way to pay
Speaker 1: money if it's unjustified. We'll talk about the eight point
Speaker 1: two million dollars down the road for the protesters who
Speaker 1: were arrested. But the basis of this would be a
Speaker 1: wrongful shooting. And the county prosecutor, Connie Pillage, said this
Speaker 1: was a justified shooting. And so as a police officer,
Speaker 1: how outrageous would it be for you and the men
Speaker 1: and women in blue one thousand strong, maybe nine to
Speaker 1: fifty strong if the city took tax dollars to pay
Speaker 1: off the estate Ryan Hinton, when that was the precipitating
Speaker 1: factor when his father, Rodney Hinton, killed Deputy Sheriff Larry
Speaker 1: Henderson honor about May second, what is the degree of
Speaker 1: outrage if they would pay millions of dollars to the
Speaker 1: family of Ryan Hinton.
Speaker 3: Well, sure everybody's outraged.
Speaker 2: You know, you had Connie Pillage that took weeks, you know,
Speaker 2: went over all the evidence, you know, to make a
Speaker 2: decision that she thought was right based off of what
Speaker 2: the law sense. And she made the right decision. The
Speaker 2: officer was cleared of any wrongdoing, so that he followed training,
Speaker 2: the officer followed the law, and then to turn around
Speaker 2: and then to offer a settlement to a family. It's
Speaker 2: just it's unfathomable. And understand it's it's weird because this
Speaker 2: is a little bit more complex. And I think this
Speaker 2: is why officers are even more outraged, is the fact
Speaker 2: that the next day, you know, the father of this
Speaker 2: kid goes out and viciously murders a deputy. Uh. It
Speaker 2: just you know, as I said in the press release,
Speaker 2: crime does pay in Cincinnati, and it's being proven time
Speaker 2: and time again that that is the case.
Speaker 1: Well, according to the media accounts, Anon Rutgers says, it's
Speaker 1: news to him. So, but your sources deep in the
Speaker 1: battles of city Hall eight to one plum streets say
Speaker 1: that even though the attorney Fanon Rucker, a former judge who,
Speaker 1: by the way, whose father sat on the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: of Indiana. I've known Fanon Rutger for a long time.
Speaker 1: He is saying it's news to him as to the settlement.
Speaker 1: Were they playing with words to indicate negotiations were underway
Speaker 1: and that somehow Fanon Rucker was more or less giving
Speaker 1: a non denial denial. I sound like a politician, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: No, exactly if you do listen what Fanon Rutger said,
Speaker 2: he goes, no, we've not filed a lawsuit. That's all
Speaker 2: he would say. He didn't say we're not negotiating. I'm
Speaker 2: not saying that there's some kind of settlement that's coming.
Speaker 2: He just said that we haven't fouled a lawsuit, which
Speaker 2: is true. They threatened a lawsuit.
Speaker 3: That is a.
Speaker 2: Result, you know, the city has been negotiating for you
Speaker 2: know this to come to a settlement agreement, which they
Speaker 2: said is absolutely unfathomable that they would do that. Just
Speaker 2: the lack of support that it shows for law enforcement
Speaker 2: officers is pretty telling.
Speaker 1: And ken Kobert going back a little bit, Emily smart
Speaker 1: Warner is the city solicitor and she's the one that
Speaker 1: settled the lawsuit filed by alphons Go Hartstein. By the way,
Speaker 1: he's an acou liberal lawyer, but he's very competent, very good.
Speaker 1: We were co counsel in the case fifteen twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: and I was impressed with him. That guy knows the law.
Speaker 1: And he convinced counsel to pay eight point two million
Speaker 1: dollars to dozens of individuals who were rightfully arrested for
Speaker 1: wrongfully protesting relative to the situations about the killing of
Speaker 1: George Floyd. And suddenly that eight point two million came
Speaker 1: flying out out of it.
Speaker 3: Did you what did you do?
Speaker 1: Because they were, of course the county was involved, deputy sheriffs,
Speaker 1: but this city was the main agency that arrested individuals
Speaker 1: who were trespassing and committing acts of violence. What degree
Speaker 1: of outrage did you have about the eight point two
Speaker 1: million dollars?
Speaker 2: Well, it's the same way, you know, back then, and
Speaker 2: I was still a patrol officer. I was working third
Speaker 2: shift downtown dealing with this, and all we did was
Speaker 2: exactly what we were told to do. And in cases
Speaker 2: like this, where there's gonna be mass arrests, you have
Speaker 2: the law department that advises, you know, the police chief
Speaker 2: who goes down, you know, the chain of command as too.
Speaker 2: This is what we're going to charge people with, This
Speaker 2: is what we're gonna do, and these officers did nothing
Speaker 2: but exactly what they were told to do. And as
Speaker 2: a direct result of that, because of the Law Department
Speaker 2: and the mistakes that were made from the Law department,
Speaker 2: you know, they dismissed all these charges and then settle
Speaker 2: with eight point two million dollars. That just you know,
Speaker 2: the hits just keep on coming for CPD and it's
Speaker 2: absolutely ridiculous that we're dealing with these things.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm aware that Joe Deeters had conversations with the
Speaker 1: mayor at that point, John Cranley, about what to do
Speaker 1: and how to do it, and back and forth. Joe said, Look,
Speaker 1: they were told to get out of the streets. They
Speaker 1: were told it was an unlawful assembly. There was bullhorns
Speaker 1: telling individuals, Okay, enough is enough. You can't block Fine Street,
Speaker 1: you can't block Broadway. You got to get out of
Speaker 1: the streets. Quit doing what you're doing. Since you were
Speaker 1: a third shift officer, how many warnings did these so
Speaker 1: called protesters slash criminals receive before they were arrested and cited.
Speaker 1: You just went pulling people out of streets. What did
Speaker 1: you do to warn them about what was going to happen?
Speaker 2: They were getting dozens of warnings to tell them to leave, disperse,
Speaker 2: go home. That way we can avoid having to arrest
Speaker 2: these folks. That was the last That was like the
Speaker 2: last straw, as.
Speaker 3: We don't want to arrest you all, but we're going to.
Speaker 2: If you don't comply with what we're telling you to do,
Speaker 2: and they continue to, you'll run them up, breaking windows
Speaker 2: out of businesses, things like that. That forced our hands.
Speaker 2: So we arrested these people. And then now five years
Speaker 2: later they turn around and let's.
Speaker 3: Just pay them for it.
Speaker 2: If I would have known that they were going to
Speaker 2: give roughly twelve thirteen thousand dollars a person, I just
Speaker 2: sent my wife and kids down there.
Speaker 3: And for what.
Speaker 1: In other words, these individuals were not protesters. They were
Speaker 1: committing criminal acts in public, and they weren't protesting legally
Speaker 1: time manner in place. They were not doing that. These
Speaker 1: were criminal acts committed by individuals who, in their own
Speaker 1: minds were well intended, but they committed crimes. And the
Speaker 1: last thing you wanted to do as a cop at
Speaker 1: that point was to arrest anybody because it means you
Speaker 1: left the street. If you had really arrested someone, and
Speaker 1: one or two or three cops had to be involved.
Speaker 1: You had a handcuff them with zip ties, take them
Speaker 1: over to the Justice center, process them. It took you
Speaker 1: off the street. So it incentivized other people to commit
Speaker 1: more criminal acts and to pay them money for that.
Speaker 3: Crime does pay.
Speaker 1: And secondly, you know, I've tried cases in federal court
Speaker 1: and unlike Hamilton County, the jurors of federal court cases
Speaker 1: come from southern Ohio, go all the way over to
Speaker 1: West Virginia to Hamilton County up south of Columbus. The
Speaker 1: jurors drawn from those counties do not have the same
Speaker 1: view of criminal justice is the City of Cincinnati has.
Speaker 1: It is very difficult to put a jury in the
Speaker 1: box in federal court to have them award criminals millions
Speaker 1: of dollars. In fact, it's very difficult. But Emily smart
Speaker 1: and Warner, the city solicitor, said, look, we don't know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen in federal court. Sometimes you got
Speaker 1: to tee it up. You got to say, we're not
Speaker 1: going to agree to pay eight million dollars to these individuals.
Speaker 1: Let a jury in the box tell us what to do.
Speaker 1: You were aware of the fact, Ken Kober that the
Speaker 1: jurors and federal cases are drawn not from the city
Speaker 1: of Cincinnati, but from Warren County, Butler County, Adams County,
Speaker 1: Claremont County, and Brown County. And those jurors do not
Speaker 1: look kindly upon individuals breaking out windows, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, So why not try the case right?
Speaker 2: Well, not only that, let's let's not forget that we
Speaker 2: had an officer, thank god, we were all wearing kevlar helmets,
Speaker 2: that was shot in the head, hands up, get shot
Speaker 2: with it. Thank god that they said the kevlar helmets
Speaker 2: stopped the round from penetrating him. But I mean that
Speaker 2: likely would have been a fatal shooting. So these weren't
Speaker 2: people that were just standing on sidewalks with signs. These
Speaker 2: were people that were out violently committing crimes. And somehow,
Speaker 2: like I said, we just decide that we're going to
Speaker 2: pay them out. It doesn't make any good sense and
Speaker 2: it certainly shows, you know, to the officers will question
Speaker 2: whether or not they're actually being supported.
Speaker 1: Ken Cobert, did you ever apprehend the guy who shot
Speaker 1: the police officer in the head.
Speaker 3: No, as far as I know that, that person was
Speaker 3: never actually caught.
Speaker 2: I mean you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of people
Speaker 2: in the street and you know around gets fired, and
Speaker 2: I mean, they're just nearly impossible to be able to
Speaker 2: locate these people.
Speaker 1: So very possibly the person who tried to kill the
Speaker 1: police officer will get about twenty thousand dollars from the
Speaker 1: city of Cincinnati for his efforts.
Speaker 3: It's entirely possible. I don't know that we'll ever know.
Speaker 1: All right, let's so we'll see what happens after one
Speaker 1: o'clock to day now. Thirdly, I have this story out
Speaker 1: of the US Department of Justice that los that's you,
Speaker 1: law enforcement officers have about seven to eight years less
Speaker 1: life expectancy because of what you do. It estimated all calls.
Speaker 1: And they've studied this thing for many years, in fact decades,
Speaker 1: and the takeaway is at the standardized mortality rates that
Speaker 1: cops like you suffer, including organizational pressures, traumatic events, longer
Speaker 1: regular work hours, hazards negatively affecting health. Little known about
Speaker 1: the specifics, whether it's heart disease or cancer or other difficulties.
Speaker 1: Goes on to say that most prior research limited by
Speaker 1: one or more factors. We have found that these factors
Speaker 1: indicate that deputy sheriffs and police officers, especially in major cities,
Speaker 1: live seven to eight years less than the average citizen.
Speaker 1: Your comments about your profession, It.
Speaker 2: Doesn't surprise me when you see the things that officers
Speaker 2: have to see, things that they have to do, you know,
Speaker 2: year in and year out over a twenty five thirty
Speaker 2: year career. You know, the stress that's upon them, not
Speaker 2: only not only from the street, but administrative stress. It
Speaker 2: doesn't surprise me a bit. But you know, officers still
Speaker 2: sign up to go do this job. They do it
Speaker 2: faithfully for twenty five thirty years, and the only thing
Speaker 2: that they ask in return is one to have a
Speaker 2: fair wage and two to be supported you know when
Speaker 2: when things happen that become public. Those are the only
Speaker 2: two things that they really ask for. And unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes the cities falls short in those those things.
Speaker 1: And Ken Covert talking about PTSD for soldiers. This study
Speaker 1: indicates that suicide among police officers, deputy sheriffs, ice, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Is three times greater than the average citizen. Are you
Speaker 1: aware that not just cancer, heart disease, other activities, but
Speaker 1: that the suicide rate among police is three times the
Speaker 1: average citizen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I believe it.
Speaker 2: We've unfortunately seen and it seems like it's increased as
Speaker 2: of late, where we've had a couple of officers that
Speaker 2: have committed suicide. We just had he was a state
Speaker 2: trooper on New Year's Morning in Ohio. It's something that
Speaker 2: is very difficult, and I do appreciate the fact that
Speaker 2: you know, at least departments now in Cincinnati's one of
Speaker 2: them that's getting a wellness unit that is providing resources.
Speaker 2: But the hard part is getting officers to take those
Speaker 2: resources and to utilize them. And it's difficult, and it's
Speaker 2: a culture that's it's gonna have to be broken. The
Speaker 2: stigma has got to be broken for officers that just
Speaker 2: bury it deep down and they just think that, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll just deal with all of the violence and things
Speaker 2: that I've seen over my career. And unfortunately, sometimes it's
Speaker 2: too late for some of them and they end up
Speaker 2: taking their lives. And that's something that we're trying to
Speaker 2: prevent here.
Speaker 1: You know, many average citizens don't report to work and
Speaker 1: then find themselves in an accident scene in which two
Speaker 1: or three bodies are bleeding out horribly. And this is
Speaker 1: a regular event. You and the firefighters. I think about
Speaker 1: Tim Dickey, friends of mine in the city of Cincinnati
Speaker 1: that go through a living hell almost every day with
Speaker 1: overdoses a fentanyl, etc. And what you men and women
Speaker 1: go through. I see this report and it's frightening. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's why it's harder and harder and harder to get
Speaker 1: more and more men and women to take the test
Speaker 1: to become a cop. And lastly, I want to talk
Speaker 1: briefly about Minneapolis and Renee Good. When the officer used
Speaker 1: his weapon, he was hit by the vehicle driven by
Speaker 1: Renee Good, as indicated by the videotape, but also by
Speaker 1: the trousers being damaged and also damaged to his leg,
Speaker 1: and then he shot Renee Good. Do you have empathy
Speaker 1: for an officer put in that situation because of the
Speaker 1: behavior of the so called protester who was a criminal.
Speaker 1: It is against the law to impede the activities of
Speaker 1: federal law enforcement officials. If you impede, harassed, or obstruct,
Speaker 1: that's called a crime. It's called eight years in prison.
Speaker 1: Do you have sympathy for what that police officer had
Speaker 1: to go through? When stay of last week?
Speaker 2: Sure you know there's more videos coming out it's showing
Speaker 2: that that this officer was in fact struck by a vehicle.
Speaker 2: You know, you hear some of the audio of people
Speaker 2: encouraging this woman to drive away, and as he gets
Speaker 2: struck by the car, he does what he thinks he
Speaker 2: has to do to save his life. You know, it's tragic.
Speaker 2: That whole thing never should have happened. It wouldn't have
Speaker 2: happened if this woman wouldn't have been blocking traffic, if
Speaker 2: she wouldn't have driven away when ice agents tell her
Speaker 2: to stop. You know, somehow in society, we've we've created,
Speaker 2: you know, this atmosphere that they think if if I
Speaker 2: don't agree with this law, if I don't agree with
Speaker 2: what law enforcement's doing, is that I I can just
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 3: Resist them and it'll be fine.
Speaker 2: Instead, in the civilized society, if they don't agree with
Speaker 2: the laws that these law enforcement officers are are enforcing,
Speaker 2: then go to your go to your US senators, go
Speaker 2: to your US representatives, and tell them I want this
Speaker 2: law changed. That's how things should be done. Not going
Speaker 2: I'm just going to reuse this law enforcement because I
Speaker 2: don't like what they're doing. That's not going to end
Speaker 2: well for these citizens that it never does.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the life expectancy of an ICE agent
Speaker 1: putting up what they put up with in major cities.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what that would look like. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: And they're working eighty to ninety hours a week, they
Speaker 1: can't sleep at night because of what they went through
Speaker 1: during the day. And then the so called protesters, the criminals,
Speaker 1: show up at two o'clock in the morning to shine
Speaker 1: lights and windows where they think an l EO Is
Speaker 1: sleeping to make their life more miserable. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: those officers having an average life expectancy. And there's simply
Speaker 1: men and women in blue trying to do their damn jobs. Well,
Speaker 1: Ken Kober, we've got to run. Good luck. We'll see
Speaker 1: what happens later today. But if you get information that
Speaker 1: the city of Cincinnati is going to pay the family
Speaker 1: of Ryan hitting millions and millions of dollars, could that
Speaker 1: cause police action of one type or another could have
Speaker 1: caused a work stoppage or a strike? Is that how
Speaker 1: outrage you would be?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we've sworn to protect a city, and
Speaker 2: just because they make terrible decisions doesn't mean that we're
Speaker 2: just going to take our ball and go home. We're
Speaker 2: going to continue to protect the city, but you never
Speaker 2: know what the outcome could be. It could be effect
Speaker 2: recruiting people decide not to come here. It could affect
Speaker 2: people just leaving going to other departments. Those are things
Speaker 2: that they need to consider before they make a terrible
Speaker 2: decision like this.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Shooting a police officer in the head during the George
Speaker 1: Floyd riots in Cincinnati and then paying that person fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty thousand dollars in that eight point two million
Speaker 1: dollar settlement is outrageous. Ken Kober, You're a great American.
Speaker 1: Thanks for what you do. Stay safe, and thanks for
Speaker 1: coming on the Bill Cunningham Show.
Speaker 3: Thank you again. Sure, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Bill, God bless you. Let's continue with more. We'll follow
Speaker 1: this after one o'clock today to see what's coming out
Speaker 1: of city Council. Bill Cunningham, the great American, live with
Speaker 1: you every day. You're home of the Reds, Bengals, Bearcats,
Speaker 1: and the Musketeers. Can they all fail together? I hope not.
Speaker 1: On News Radio seven hundred WLW