America’s first “wake up call” of the 21st century (op-ed)

At 2 am, on April 7, 2001, Timothy Thomas, a 19-year-old black man, ran from two Cincinnati police officers that tried to apprehend him.  Thomas had 14 warrants for traffic violations and for evading arrest.  The two police officers radioed for assistance.  A third officer joined the pursuit, cornered Thomas in an alley, but the 19-year-old reached for his waistband (According to the officer) and was fatally shot in the chest. 

Timothy Thomas was unarmed.

Protesters took to the streets with signs that said: Stop Killing Us.  Since 1995 the Cincinnati police killed 14 black men and Timothy Thomas was the latest.  “15 black men” became the protesters rallying cry.  Local black officials accused the Cincinnati police department of gunning down black men for sport and suggested what happened to Timothy Thomas was another racist execution.

The situation quickly turned into the largest civil disturbance since the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles.  Those that believed rioting was the language of the unheard, therefore, a justifiable response to white racism, announced that the rioting in Cincinnati was America’s first “wake up call” of the 21^st century.  The mainstream media automatically sided with the protesters and agreed that 15 black men shot and killed by the Cincinnati police in a six-year period proved a pattern of systemic racism.

But no one bothered to ask one simple question.  Did Timothy Thomas belong on the list with the other 14 black men killed by the Cincinnati police? 

Thomas’s death was the result of “threat perception failure”.  The officer perceived a threat due to the suspect’s hand motion and discharged his firearm. But the suspect was unarmed and what the officer perceived to be a threat was not a reality.  That made the officer’s judgement questionable. (But it doesn’t automatically mean the officer was motivated by racism or had criminal intent.) The other names on the list of black men killed by the Cincinnati police included Harvey Price, he killed his girlfriend’s daughter, had a four-hour standoff with SWAT, lunged at an officer with a knife and was shot dead.  Jermaine Lowe was a parole violator wanted for armed robbery.  Lowe fled from a police cruiser in a stolen car, crashed into another vehicle, shot his gun at pursuing officers, and the officers shot and killed him.  Alfred Pope pistol-whipped and robbed a man in an apartment building.  Pope pointed his gun at the officers that came to arrest him.  The officers shot Pope dead.  (Only two cases out of the 14 were due to an officer’s misjudgment and excessive force.)

The only thing Timothy Thomas had in common with most of the other men killed by Cincinnati police was skin color, and regardless of the individual circumstances or specific details of each man’s death, the list was compiled to produce a racial narrative that accused the Cincinnati police of killing these men just because they were black.

The narrative demonized the Cincinnati police department to the point they didn’t want to be held liable for racial incidents of any type.  After order was restored in the city, the Cincinnati police department withdrew their presence from the surrounding area of the Thomas shooting.  Once law enforcement dropped, arrest fell by 50 percent, crime skyrocketed, and in two years, Cincinnati’s homicide rate leaped from below the national average to three times above the national average.  According to one report: The neighborhoods that were hit the hardest by the riots were victimized again by the crime surge.  Before the riots these areas were revitalizing with new businesses and new homeowners, but due to the riot and the spike in crime all investment into the area ended.  (Paving a path for gentrification.)

All of this happened when a police department simply withdrew their presence from the area. 

Now, imagine if Cincinnati’s city council decided to disband their police force like the city council in Minneapolis has pledged to do after the police killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.

George Orwell said it best, “Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 6/17/2020