Shortly after midnight on April 7th, Timothy Thomas, 19, left the Cincinnati apartment he shared with his fiancée and their three-month-old son to buy cigarettes. Thomas, who had once been convicted of receiving stolen property, was wanted by police on 14 warrants involving misdemeanor and traffic charges, including running from police on two occasions when they attempted to arrest him.

He was spotted by two off-duty officers and once again opted to run. The officers called for backup, and a dozen others soon arrived to join the search for Thomas as he jumped fences, darted behind buildings, and eventually ran into an alley. Among those in pursuit was Officer Steve Roach, a four-year department veteran who eventually cornered Thomas in the dark alley. He claims that he saw the youth reach for something in his waistband, presumably a firearm. Believing that his life was in danger, he fired a single shot, striking Thomas in the chest. The wound proved fatal, but no weapon was found on the dead man.

Two days later angry protestors, demanding answers that officials could not give because key evidence related to the incident had been sealed pending a grand jury investigation, disrupted a city council meeting. One irate spectator stood on a table, another waved a "COP KILLERS" sign at Police Chief Tom Streitcher, and Rev. Damon Lynch III, a pastor who chairs the Cincinnati Black United Front, urged protestors to bar the doors until the demands for information were met.

After a three-hour shouting match, officials gave up the attempt to appease the increasingly unruly throng, and when one councilman commented that Officer Roach may indeed have fired at Thomas because he thought his life was in danger, the angry mob spilled into the streets. The ensuing demonstrations rapidly metastasized into a rampage of racially-motivated anti-police violence during which rioters looted and set fire to businesses, hurled rocks and bricks at mostly white victims, and beat several drivers after pulling them from their cars. After three days of mayhem, Mayor Charles Luken declared a state of emergency and imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew that lasted from April 12th to the 16th.

Arsonists as Firemen

While the death of Timothy Thomas was the spark that ignited the riots, that spark would have been quickly extinguished were it not for the careful preparations of Cincinnati’s race-baiting civic arsonists. Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Peter Bronson argued that "many of the same people who played with matches and started the fire" — among them Rev. Lynch, "civil rights" attorney Ken Lawson, and City Council member Alicia Reece — "are now ‘peacemakers’ for calling 911 to put it out."

Many of the agitators on hand for the April 9th City Council meeting where the riot began "had been there before to protest the deaths of black men in the custody of the Cincinnati police," pointed out the April 16th Enquirer. "In earlier meetings, they had carried signs and shouted protest slogans. Last year they’d marched around with handmade coffins hoisted on their shoulders." Columnist Bronson points out that the "protests" weren’t limited to slogans and street theater: Previous council meetings had been "turned into bizarre circuses for more than a year by race-hustlers who spout vicious anti-Semitism. Some people warned it could get out of control. Council members said ‘no big deal’ and did nothing."

Those who instigated the Cincinnati riots repeated the mantra that "15 African-American males," but no whites, have been killed by city police since 1995 — a seemingly damning figure that loses its impact once the cases are examined in any detail. "Out of the 15 males killed," notes syndicated columnist and radio commentator Larry Elder (who is black), "six drew guns on officers; four threatened officers with other instruments; and one incident resulted in a Cincinnati officer killed with two others injured." Some of the cases involve the shooting of black suspects by black policemen.

Of the 15 instances of lethal force, only three others — aside from the Timothy Thomas shooting — gave rise to disciplinary action or other sanctions. In one, police say that Michael Carpenter, who was seen driving a car with expired license plates, refused to get out and instead reached inside his glove compartment. Officer Michael Miller reached through the driver’s side widow to pull Carpenter out, and was reportedly dragged for 15 feet before hitting a parked van. Miller’s partner, Officer Brent McCurley, says that he fired nine shots after the auto’s backup lights came on, suggesting that Carpenter intended to run him over. Although Miller and McCurley were exonerated by three separate investigating bodies — the department’s internal affairs division, the county prosecutor, and the U.S. Department of Justice — the city’s "Citizens Review Panel" ruled that the shooting was unjustified. Officer Miller resigned, and Officer McCurley was given an official reprimand.

The February 1997 shooting death of Lorenzo Collins, a mentally disturbed man who had threatened police with a brick, gave rise to the creation of the Cincinnati "Citizens Review Panel." Once again, investigations by both the city police and the Janet Reno Justice Department found that the officers involved had committed no wrongdoing — but a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Collins’ family resulted in a $200,000 award.

Two officers were also indicted after the November 2000 death of Roger Owensby Jr., who died by suffocation after being arrested for several outstanding warrants. Owensby was tackled after trying to flee arrest, sprayed with a chemical irritant, handcuffed, and placed in the rear of a police cruiser. He was found unconscious a short time later.

Unlikely "Martyrs"

The roster of Cincinnati’s supposed "martyrs" hardly validates the contention that the city’s black population is under siege by "rogue cops":

• The list begins with Harvey Price, a 34-year-old who killed a 15-year-old with an ax and then engaged in a four-hour stand-off with police in February 1995. He was shot as he charged police officers with a knife.
• Darryll C. Price, who was killed during a struggle with police in April 1996, was found jumping on the hood of a car and yelling that he was going to "shoot someone." Price, who had been seen taking cocaine before the incident, died from a condition called "agitated delirium with restraint" — a sudden death syndrome often seen among mentally ill drug abusers — after being tackled and shackled by police, according to an autopsy.
• Daniel Williams, a convicted felon who was killed in February 1998, apparently did not fear the police: He flagged down a police cruiser driven by 23-year-old Officer Kathleen Conway, punched her in the face, fired four shots from a .357 Magnum into her legs and abdomen, and commandeered her car. Conway, although injured, shot Williams twice in the head with her service revolver.
• Jermaine Lowe, who was killed in June 1998, was a convicted felon who had violated his parole guidelines and was being sought in connection with an armed robbery. He fired first on two police officers who returned fire, killing him.
• Randy Black was shot by police in July 1998 after robbing the Cinco Credit Union. He was shot twice in the abdomen while wielding a two-by-four bristling with rusted nails.
• James King’s August 1999 shooting also followed an attempted robbery: He fired a gunshot after handing a teller a note threatening to take hostages and kill them if he didn’t get his cash. After a high-speed chase he was cornered by police. He jumped from his car with his gun in his hand — with the predictable consequences.
• Carey Tompkins, who had threatened his girlfriend with a 9mm handgun, died from a gunshot as he struggled with an officer over control of the gun.
• Alfred Pope, whose rap sheet displayed 18 felony charges and five felony convictions, was shot in March 2000 after robbing and pistol-whipping three people.
• Twelve-year-old Courtney Mathis snuck behind the wheel of a relative’s car and took it for a joy ride in September of last year. When Mathis stopped at a convenience store, Officer Kevin Crayon asked for his license and registration. Mathis put the car into reverse, prompting Crayon to grab for the keys. Mathis took off, dragging the officer along. After being dragged for 800 feet, Crayon managed to fire a shot into the youngster’s chest, mortally wounding him. Officer Crayon died when his head struck the exhaust pipe of another automobile. The families of Courtney Mathis and Officer Crayon "came together after the incident and urged forgiveness," notes the Enquirer — a commendable and heroic gesture that was ignored by the city’s radical agitators.
• Jeffrey Irons, a homeless man, was caught in the act of shoplifting. Rather than surrender, he seized a firearm and shot one officer before being shot himself in November of last year.
• Adam Wheeler, who was wanted on three felony warrants, screamed, "You want a war? You got a war" as he fired six shots at officers who had come to his apartment to investigate a drug complaint. Wheeler died and Officer Craig Gregoire was wounded in the January 2001 shootout.

Racists Run Riot

Clearly, these cases, unfortunate as they are, do not indicate that the Cincinnati police have been engaged in a racist rampage. But the riots that erupted after the Thomas shooting were unmistakably race-specific — "racial profiling" of innocent citizens by hate-crazed mobs. After the curfew was imposed by Mayor Luken, attorney Ken Lawson — who did more than his share to contrive public outrage over "racial profiling" — actually applauded the rioters for giving "whites a better understanding of what it feels like to be a random target of violence just because of the color of your skin."

One incident, especially, underscored the racist nature of the disorder. Roslyn Jones, 28, was driving through a troubled area after attending an evening class at the University of Cincinnati when she heard someone shout a reference to a "white girl." She did not think that it was directed at her, since she is black, but she is also albino and has fair skin. The black crowd, believing that she was white, began hurling rocks and bricks at her car, shattering the windshield. She was momentarily dazed by a brick that struck her in the head. When she came to, blood was pouring from the wound as more rocks bounced off her car. Suddenly, a man began yelling "Stop. She’s black! She’s black!" The fusillade subsided, and the good Samaritan pulled her from the car and carried her to safety. She later told the Cincinnati Enquirer, "It hurts. My own people couldn’t even recognize me. They didn’t even look long enough to see. The first piece of white skin they saw, they hit it." Her car was looted during the night.

In another incident, Robert Stearns, a white truck driver from Kentucky, was severely beaten after a group of blacks attempted to steal his parked vehicle. Stearns told a Louisville newspaper that the mob shouted, "Kill him, kill him, kill him" as his assailants punched and kicked him.

Dozens of persons were injured during the week and more than 120 stores were heavily damaged and/or looted (arson damage alone exceeded $250,000). More than 850 individuals were arrested, most for violating the curfew. On April 20th, a Hamilton County grand jury indicted 63 persons on felony charges ranging from aggravated riot and breaking and entering to resisting arrest. Three days later, a 20-year-old white man became the first person indicted for a "hate" crime. He is accused of hurling racial epithets and a brick at a black motorist who was, happily, not injured.

Predictably, the Cincinnati police have been subjected to a ferocious attack by individuals, organizations, and media anxious to exploit the Thomas shooting to increase federal control of yet another local police department. The New York Times for April 12th reported that prominent blacks had "called for a federal investigation of the shooting for possible violations of civil rights." The Times itself editorialized on April 18th that "the Bush administration must keep up the pressure in Cincinnati, and wherever else police behavior is problematic." And in between the Associated Press for April 15th reported that leftist and longtime police critic Rev. Al Sharpton had "cut short a trip to Africa to fly to Cincinnati," where he proclaimed (in the AP’s words) that "the federal government must take a leadership role in improving relationships between city police departments and blacks, and that President Bush must become involved." "It’s time," Sharpton declared, "for a national response and real change, not just telling us to quiet down."

The "national response" called for by Sharpton was already underway. On April 12th, the White House had announced that President Bush had asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to "help calm and resolve the situation" by dispatching two Justice Department mediators to investigate. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, who had called for such intervention, was delighted. "We have said all along that we wanted and would welcome a wider and deeper probe of this matter by the Justice Department," he told reporters. "It takes the bully pulpit of the attorney general’s office to get a fire going under police officials."

In compliance with the president’s directive, Attorney General Ashcroft announced that the FBI was opening a criminal investigation into the Thomas shooting, and on April 13th attorneys for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division launched an inquiry into "the practices, procedures and training" of the police department. According to the Washington Post for April 14th, Mr. Ashcroft "ordered the review after requests from Mayor Charles Luken and the NAACP." Cincinnati’s police force now joins those in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Detroit, and Prince George’s County, Maryland (among others) that have been brought under federal scrutiny in the wake of allegations of brutality, corruption, and racial profiling.

There are some bad cops, to be sure, and they should be exposed and reprimanded, fired, and/or prosecuted for their misdeeds. Many analysts now believe, however, that police misconduct, while limited to a relatively small number of the 637,000-plus state and local law enforcement officers, may be increasing due to the malign impact of federal aid, regulation, and litigation that combine to pressure local agencies to redirect their allegiance from the communities they serve to Washington. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported on April 21st, for instance:

The fate of Cincinnati’s police division is now in the hands of a few government lawyers hundreds of miles away.
The lawyers are from the U.S. Department of Justice, and they have the power to recommend changes that could affect the way police officers in Cincinnati do their jobs.
… the Justice Department team must decide if the city’s problems run so deep that the only remedy is a federal civil-rights lawsuit.
A preliminary investigation, like the one going on now in Cincinnati’s case, is the first stage of the process. The lawyers then review the evidence and decide whether it warrants a full investigation....
After that, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft must decide whether to drop the case or go forward with a lawsuit. Then it’s up to city officials to either fight the lawsuit in court or sign a consent decree.

A consent decree is a legal agreement in which the police department submits to a host of U.S. Justice Department mandates, amounting to a virtual federal takeover of the local police. Police departments in at least a dozen cities are currently undergoing such federal scrutiny. Three others (in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Steubenville, Ohio) have already signed consent decrees, as have the New Jersey state police. Only one (in Columbus, Ohio) is fighting allegations against its officers in court. In March, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Cincinnati Black United Front filed a federal lawsuit accusing the police department of discrimination spanning three decades. The lawsuit charges that police habitually violate the rights of blacks through such practices as racial profiling and excessive use of force. In the wake of the Cincinnati riots, the NAACP joined the lawsuit.

The available statistics do not validate the notion that blacks are being targeted by police for indiscriminate violence. A study released in March by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that of suspects killed by police, nationwide, the percentage of whites increased from 50 percent to 62 percent between 1978 and 1998, while that for blacks dropped from 49 percent to 35 percent. The rate (per million population) at which blacks were killed by police in 1998 was about four times that of whites, but the rate in 1978 was eight times that of whites. Further, the report states, "From 1980 to 1998, young black males made up about 1% of the U.S. population but 21% of felons who murdered a police officer," while "young white males were 8% of the population but 20% of the murderers of law enforcement officers." Put another way, "Young black males murdered police officers at a rate almost 6 times that of young white males (5.7 versus 1 per million population)."

What we are witnessing are escalating attempts to portray entire police departments as brutal, racist, corruption-ridden, Nazi-like entities that can only be reformed through enhanced oversight by civilian review boards, increased infusions of federal aid and regulation, and strong-arm federal legal intervention when "necessary." This development, combined with the drive to disarm average Americans via gun control, is a major step on the road to a centralized police state.

From Protectors to Oppressors

From the days of fascist Sparta to the present, the lessons of history confirm that a key strategy of dictators and oligarchs has been the centralization of police power, and disarming of those to be ruled in order to facilitate their rise to power and help them maintain control thereafter. Here in the United States, our independent local police forces, whose personnel are personally acquainted with their neighbors and others in the areas they serve, have traditionally refrained from the sorts of brutal actions that often become a hallmark of centralized police establishments. It would be virtually impossible to incorporate tens of thousands of locally financed and controlled police forces into a police-state tyranny, but such would be virtually certain should our federal government gain control of them through the carrot of federal aid and the sticks of regulation and legal harassment.

A key litmus test for discerning a blossoming police state is the extent to which peaceful citizens begin to view the police as adversaries rather than allies. Residents of totalitarian countries fear the police, since they know their assignment is to keep an oppressive government in power. In a free country, as noted earlier, police are not agents of the central government, but instead serve their local communities. Their job is to protect the lives and property of those who hire them and pay their salaries. Under that arrangement, innocent persons need not fear the police, but instead further benefit by cooperating with them. Widespread community support tends to limit the need for large police forces, while lack of support fuels the conditions that make them necessary.

Ironically, radical activists and groups such as Cincinnati’s Black United Front, the Nation of Islam, the New Black Panther Party, Al Sharpton, and the NAACP — all of whom were active in Cincinnati — have succeeded in convincing many blacks that they should look with fear and suspicion upon local police, while seeking the protection of federal police. It is also ironic that local police, rather than federal authorities, are being scapegoated for the increasing militarization, corruption, and lack of local accountability that characterize increasing federalization of local police bodies.

In an August 26, 1999 paper published by the Cato Institute, Diane Cecilia Weber, a Virginia-based writer on law enforcement and criminal justice, warned that "one of the most alarming side effects of the federal government’s war on drugs is the militarization of law enforcement in America." Between 1995 and 1997, for instance, the Defense Department contributed 1.2 million pieces of military hardware to police departments (an average of about two items per officer). As a result of this and related federal policies, "the lines that have traditionally separated the military mission from the police mission are getting badly blurred" as state and local police officers increasingly adopt "the tactics and mindset of their military mentors."

The problem, Weber points out in Warrior Cops: The Ominous Growth of Paramilitarism in American Police Departments, is that "the actions and values of the police officer are distinctly different from those of the warrior. The job of a police officer is to keep the peace, but not by just any means. Police officers are expected to apprehend suspected lawbreakers while adhering to constitutional procedures. They are expected to use minimum force and to deliver suspects to a court of law. The soldier, on the other hand, is an instrument of war. In boot camp, recruits are trained to inflict maximum damage on enemy personnel. Confusing the police function with the military function can have dangerous consequences."

Indeed it can, yet for two decades Congress, and one administration after another regardless of party, have worked to create that confusion. For instance:

• In 1981 Congress approved the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act that amended the Posse Comitatus Act to allow the military to "assist" civilian police in enforcing drug laws.
• In 1986 President Ronald Reagan issued a National Decision Security Directive designating drugs a threat to "national security," thereby encouraging a symbiotic relationship between civilian law enforcement and the military.
• In 1987 Congress established an administrative apparatus to facilitate transactions between civilian law enforcement officials and the military.
• In 1988 Congress directed the National Guard to assist law enforcement agencies in counterdrug operations.
• In 1989 President George Bush created six regional joint task forces within the Department of Defense that were assigned to coordinate the drug war activities of the military and police agencies (including joint training of military units and civilian police).
• In 1994 the Departments of Justice and Defense signed a memorandum of understanding that authorized the military to transfer technology to state and local police departments. As a result, Weber observes, "civilian officers now have at their disposal an array of high-tech military items previously reserved for use during wartime."

"All of those measures," Weber asserts, "have resulted in the militarization of a wide range of activity in the United States that had been previously considered the domain of civilian law enforcement." Indeed, "The military-law enforcement connection is now a basic assumption within the federal government, and it receives enthusiastic support in government literature." As a result, and with "widespread political sanction," the military is "encouraged to share training, equipment, technology — and, most subtle, mentality — with state and local civilian police."

This trend, Weber contends, "is a deeply disturbing development. Police officers are not supposed to be warriors. The job of a police officer is to keep the peace while adhering to constitutional procedures. Soldiers, on the other hand, consider enemy personnel human targets. Confusing the police function with the military function can lead to dangerous and unintended consequences — such as unnecessary shootings and killings."

It is yet another reason to insist that the independence of our local police be restored by terminating federal aid to, and regulation of, local law enforcement agencies. And to support them when (as in Cincinnati) they are under siege by revolutionary miscreants and scheming politicians.

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