Dayton Daily NewsFears abound in Cincinnati, and hopes, tooBy Mara Lee April 16, 2001CINCINNATI - On a cold, blustery Sunday, Cincinnati residents were still out on porches and side walks, as if they refused to accept the retreat from spring.Like the changing weather, people in the Queen City are of two minds, some pessimistic and others hopeful about the days and months to come in the wake of last week's riots. Most folks interviewed Easter Sunday in a working-class community on Cincinnati's west side and in Hyde Park, had a nuanced response to the riots, hating both the violence and the problems that led to three nights of vandalism fires, looting and assaults. The civil unrest began after white Cincinnati Police Officer Steven Roach shot a black man Timothy Thomas, 19, to death during a foot chase April 7 in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. Thomas was unarmed and sought by police on 14 misdemeanor arrest warrants. Dorothy Reese, 51, lives in Sedamsville, a predominately white neighborhood of once-grand Victorian houses and churches along the Ohio River and some modest houses up in the hills. A few homes are restored, but tar paper shingles and boarded-up windows outnumber renovated Easter-egg-colored clapboard. Reese said young men need to respect police, but she doesn't think the police are blameless. "Officers think, 'Get them first before they get (me),'" said Reese, who is white. But even as she condemned police for rough treatment of people in her neighborhood, she said, "You never know for sure which side is right or wrong." Three young white men interviewed in Sedamsville had stronger opinions. "Police look at everybody else as the enemy," said Chris Weider, 23. "They don't care what color we are." Daniel Heston, 21, also was unforgiving of police, despite a friend's protests that many of the men who were killed were armed. Heston said police are biased against blacks. They should get some better police in there that know how to treat citizens," Heston said. Jeff Clark, 21, interrupted him with a tirade against the looters. "They should've called the National Guard in here. Cops should lay down the law the way it should be," he nearly shouted. Heston agreed that the looting and rioting were wrong, but he insisted, "All people, black or white, should be treated like human beings." Bobby Stevenson, 36, moved his family of eight to Sedamsville three years ago from Over-the-Rhine, where the worst of the rioting was concentrated. Stevenson, who is black, tells his sons, ages 16, 14, and 11, that they have to give respect to get respect. But still, he worries about how police will treat his oldest son, who's 6-feet, 6 inches tall and weighs more than 300 pounds. Police wouldn't see that he has a part time job and a 3.2 grade average, Stevenson said. If his son had been in Over-The-Rhine on Tuesday night, "they would've just looked at him for his size alone, and his skin." Stevenson, whose father's used appliance store on Vine Street was not damaged during the looting, said people should not confuse lawlessness with protest. "Tearing up on stuff is not going to make Roach pay. Roach is the only person we should be mad at," Stevenson said. Some Cincinnatians are looking past the week's events to the larger question of how to change the police department's culture. Those interviewed suggested improved communication and boosting the number of black officers and blacks in management. Keith Goodwin, 48, has lived in Cincinnati for 26 years. He lives on the border of Hyde Park and Evanston, in the O'Bryonville District, where a small strip of antique stores and galleries anchors a neighborhood more than halfway on the road to gentrification. Evanston is a mostly black area, and Goodwin, who is white, has always felt comfortable there. But he was startled to learn how little he knew about blacks' fears of the police. He said Cincinnati should select a police chief from the outside, who will bring a fresh view. "I think people are treated differently in certain neighborhoods," he said. "That has to stop." Brooks Smutz, 40, has lived in Over-the-Rhine for 15 years. Even before this week, she had many friends who questioned her sanity for choosing to live and work in the inner city. And when Smutz, who is white, first moved there, officers often pulled her over, questioning why she was there and warning her away. She's seen police who have "a profound discomfort with even being in the area," she said. What they don't realize is that there are "lots of people who live in (and) work in Over-the-Rhine who are just ordinary people." She thinks it's absurd that officers are not required to live in Cincinnati. City policy only requires that they live in Hamilton County. And Smutz argues that relations could improve if some of the officers who patrol Over-the-Rhine lived there, too. Stevenson has a number of friends who are police officers, and he said talking with them makes him think the city should find a way to bring more of the older, more experienced cops to the night shift. A friend who is an officer said rookies "come to work scared and they go out on the streets scared." Fear was a common thread. Reese said she and her neighbors sit around and talk about the unrest. "We're listening to the news and hoping that the curfew can be lifted without trouble." Goodwin said, "I hope people used this quiet time these past three nights of curfew to think how we can make this city a better place. This time it has to stop, or I'm afraid we'll have more frequent outbursts of violence." Evanston resident Alvin Starks, 40, moved to Cincinnati in 1994, and said it didn't take riots to demonstrate how rigidity leads to irrational fear. During Ujima, an annual jazz festival, many downtown restaurants close their doors. They say it's because the festival hurts business, and Starks believes it. "White people in Cincinnati find blacks hard to deal with," said Starks, who is black.Starks isn't singling out his city. "I think it's really nationwide," he said. "It just happens I'm in Cincinnati, so I'm aware of it here." He said, "Cincinnati likes to pride itself as liveable. If the city's perceived as racist, that'll have a negative impact economically," and that can be a catalyst for change. Starks pointed to the lesson he sees in human genome research: "We're all 99.9 percent identical. All races are equal. In reality, we're all the same." top Back next |