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CNN Live At Daybreak

Police Shooting Threatens Uneasy Cincinnati Calm

Aired July 27, 2001 - 07:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: To Cincinnati now -- a shooting overnight that could threaten the tense calm there. The city has been on the edge since April, when a white officer shot and killed a black man.

This morning, another young black man has been shot dead. And it is the police officer who pulled the trigger.

Now, it's early moments. There are still some things to be sorted out here. The facts around this shooting is different from those in the past.

But let's get up to date now on this.

We'll go to Chris Balish with CNN affiliate WKRC.

CHRIS BALISH, WKRC REPORTER: Good morning, Colleen.

That's right. We're coming to you live from a neighborhood on the west side of downtown Cincinnati. We have one African-American suspect who was shot dead by a Cincinnati police officer. Police Chief Tom Streicher here in Cincinnati tells us that that suspect was in fact armed with a 12-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip at the time of this shooting.

Now, to the best of our knowledge, the police officer responded to this neighborhood after reports of a man walking down the street with a loaded shotgun. At that time, he engaged the suspect, gunshots were fired, the Cincinnati police officer fired seven rounds -- five from his police-issued handgun, two from his police-issued shotgun.

When other Cincinnati police officers arrived on the scene, they found the suspect lying dead with a shotgun -- the suspect's shotgun apparently laying next to him and two spent shotgun shells -- apparently gunshots that he fired at the police officer. We do not know who fired first, and the investigation is ongoing. But this makes the 16th African-American man who has been shot dead at the hands of Cincinnati police officers since 1995.

Now, it is important to point out also that all but three of those 16 African-Americans, who were shot by Cincinnati police were armed. Some of them were armed with guns -- six of them had guns, one had a knife, one had a brick, one had a board with nails in it, others had motor vehicles. And one of those suspects, in fact, took a Cincinnati police officer's own gun and used it against her.

So this is a very difficult situation for police. They have community-relations monitors that are going to be working this neighborhood, walking down -- up and down the streets, talking to residents and making sure that they know that this will be a thorough and complete investigation, both criminally and administratively within the Cincinnati police division -- Colleen.

MCEDWARDS: Yes, Chris, I know it's early there, but in the people you have talked to so far, how edgy are police this morning about this given the kind of scrutiny the department is under?

BALISH: Yes. The first time I have ever seen something like this happen -- the Cincinnati police division actually showed to the media the shotgun that they say they recovered from the suspect. They made a very strong point of showing that to all the media. They showed it to the cameras. They had an evidence-collection team wearing rubber gloves, holding up the weapon so that we could see that.

In fact, this suspect was armed. So they want there to be no doubt that the suspect was armed, and that this was most likely, in their opinion, a case of a Cincinnati police officer simply protecting himself.

MCEDWARDS: Do people there still -- do they still feel confident about their police department? What are people saying?

BALISH: I think that depends on which neighborhood you go into. I think much of this city is very confident in the Cincinnati police division. However, I think some of the predominantly inner-city neighborhoods -- this particular neighborhood just west of downtown -- I think you might get a very different view. And that's one of the things we are going to be finding out as the day goes on today.

MCEDWARDS: OK, Chris Balish, thanks very much.

And speaking of those different neighborhoods, different opinions, let's get a closer look now at this simmering that's going on in this city with CNN's Brian Palmer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Roll call, District One.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are the same people coming up over and over again.

PALMER: Violent crime is soaring in Cincinnati. Roughly 90 shootings since April, when parts of the city were torn apart by the violence that followed the shooting of 19-year-old Timothy Thomas. That's five times the number of shootings during the same period last year.

Police have responded to April's outcry by pulling back, what some are calling de-policing. The result: arrests are down by half.

CHIEF THOMAS STREICHER, CINCINNATI POLICE: They feel like the entire blame for everything that occurred here in the city is being shouldered on them, and I think it is a natural reaction for them to shut down.

PALMER (on camera): The Cincinnati police division stands charged of racially biased policing. The Department of Justice and the FBI are investigating the department's practices, which critics and lawsuits say promoted the excessive use of force. The head of the city's police union says his officers are being condemned for doing their job.

KEITH FANGMAN, FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE: We certainly didn't sign up to allow our lives to be turned into a living nightmare over a false accusation of racial profiling, so the cops have backed off. We are still answering the 911 calls. We are still answering the calls for service if we see a crime in progress. We are taking action.

PALMER: Officer Mike Bell, a cop for 11 years, five of those in Cincinnati, feels only more distant from the community he's paid to protect.

MIKE BELL, CINCINNATI POLICE OFFICER: People judge me only by the uniform I wear. They don't judge me by police officer Mike Bell.

PALMER: What police are not doing is taking the initiative, all the tactics of community policing, like talking to residents, that prevent crime. Robert Booth supports the police even though the bank where he works was robbed at gunpoint.

ROBERT BOOTH, WINSTON SAVINGS AND LOAN: I think the police department is doing everything they possibly can to take care of these rash of robberies that we have experienced.

PALMER: But many residents of Over-The-Rhine, a largely poor, black neighborhood, the hardest hit by crime, say they are suffering from the police slowdown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a delicate time right now for the police. It's a delicate time for the city of Cincinnati.

PALMER: 29-year-old Darrick Dansby runs a nonprofit financial services agency in Over-The-Rhine that was trashed during April's unrest.

DARRICK DANSBY, SMARTMONEY COMMUNITY SERVICES: We've been out here maybe 10, 15 minutes. We haven't seen one police officer, none on a horse, none on a bike, none on a car, which leaves that vacuum for anything to happen.

PALMER: Black police leaders say the department needs to come to terms with modern policing.

SCOTTY JOHNSON, SENTINEL POLICE ASSOCIATION: If it so horrible being a Cincinnati police officer, go get another job. Go get another job, because this job comes with criticism; this job comes with accountability; this job comes with scrutiny.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We are going to explore this a little bit further, when we speak with Officer Scotty Johnson. He is with the Cincinnati Police Department, but he is African-American. He works with a group that represents African-American police officers in Cincinnati.

Officer Johnson says -- in fact, I understand he is joining us right now.

Officer Johnson, good morning.

JOHNSON: Hi.

LIN: This is Officer Scotty...

JOHNSON: Hello?

LIN: ... Johnson with the Cincinnati Police Department. If you can hear me...

JOHNSON: Yes.

LIN: ... Officer Johnson?

JOHNSON: Yes, I can.

LIN: Thanks. I know it was a bit of a scramble to get you into the chair. We are anxious to cover this story, because as you know, there have been developments overnight -- yet another officer-involved shooting of an African-American.

The police are stating -- if you haven't heard it yet today -- your police department is stating that this young man fired first, that this officer was responding to a call with a man armed with a shotgun.

The officer's name, as I understand it, is Officer Thomas Haas. Do you know him?

JOHNSON: Yes, I am familiar with Haas.

LIN: Now, what we know of Officer Haas is that this is the second officer-involved shooting that he has been involved in. And in fact, the other one was just, I think, a couple of weeks ago.

What do you know about this man?

JOHNSON: Well, unfortunately, the shooting was -- the one a couple of weeks ago, we had a suspect that was in the area that we had reports that he had a weapon on him. And when the police -- he had attempted to rob a passing motorist. And when the police arrived, this suspect opened fire on the officer, and the officer returned fire. And in that horrible encounter, nobody was injured. LIN: All right.

Well, the department is going to this neighborhood of Millvale to talk directly with the residents and brief them on their own investigation. But given that you have an officer here who, you know, is involved in two officer-involved shootings in the last couple of weeks, given the riots that occurred in April and the charges of police brutality and the schism between minority communities and the police department as it stands now, what sort of credibility is your department going to have in going to these residents to say, hey, this is an exceptional officer? This is what happened. He was just defending himself.

JOHNSON: Well, I mean, the details are still so much sketchy from last night. But it does appear that this suspect opened fire or fired first at Officer Haas, and Officer Haas returned fire. And, unfortunately, somebody is dead as the result of pointing a gun and/or even firing it at the police.

I think the situation here in Cincinnati is getting out of control. And we are going to have to start to take control -- get control back of our streets. Like we said, if this -- it appears, like I said, information is still coming in -- but it appears that the officer was under fire. The suspect pulled a shotgun on him and started firing. And the officer returned fire. And the suspect was killed.

LIN: Officer Johnson, what do you mean by "out of control"? I mean, you represent a very particular group with a very particular point of view. You represent African-American officers who are now serving with a police department that is accused of racial profiling.

JOHNSON: Well, exactly. And it is a tough job. It's a tough job.

And sometimes in life you have to make tough decisions. But if African-American citizens are being treated unfairly here in the city of Cincinnati, and with me being a part of the -- an organization that is contributing to that, then I am going to step forward to make sure that we treat African-American citizens here in the city of Cincinnati equally as we do white citizens here in the city of Cincinnati.

Racial profiling does take place here in the city of Cincinnati. And we hope that with the lawsuit that is now in place against the Cincinnati Police Department, we hope that we can come to a consent decree where we can work together collectively to make sure that everybody is being treated fairly here in Cincinnati.

LIN: Well, the U.S. Justice Department also announced this week that they are going to be investigating the department as well. So what do you tell an African-American citizen who comes up to you -- as an African-American police officer in the Cincinnati Police Department, what do you tell them when they say, "Look, you guys are racists"?

What are you going to do about it? JOHNSON: Well, you have to be honest. First of all, we have to have some honest dialog between the citizens of Cincinnati and the police department. We have to be honest that either it's -- there is a perception there that we here in the city of Cincinnati are treating African-American citizens unfairly.

LIN: Well, what do you see your fellow officers doing? Eyewitness account here.

JOHNSON: I'm sorry?

LIN: What do you see your fellow officers doing? You know...

JOHNSON: Well...

LIN: ... give me an eyewitness account.

JOHNSON: Well, we -- the Sentinel Police Association has gotten thousands of complaints of black citizens being treated unfairly. And if we see that, then therefore it is up to us. We are part of the agency. It's up to us as police officers -- African-American police officers to be responsible to say that type of behavior, if it's unjustified, is not acceptable. And so we have to be able to establish trust with the citizens here in the city of Cincinnati.

LIN: And you say that, but you have also said that your department is in denial. Has your department admitted to itself?

JOHNSON: No. And they haven't. And to be quite honest, they don't believe racial profiling is taking place here in the city of Cincinnati. And I say we have got thousands of complaints. The Sentinel Police Association has received thousands of complaints saying the contrary. So...

LIN: So what happens to those complaints, then?

JOHNSON: Those complaints were compiled in a 70-page report and presented to city council and the city manager and the mayor. Once again, what got us to April was city officials telling African- American citizens that your claims -- OK -- they are falling on deaf ears. And we got to a point in April where the citizens had had enough. And that's when you had the uprisings.

So, yes, the Cincinnati Police Department is in denial. And they have to come to grips with we've got some bad apples. And it's time to address those bad apples.

LIN: So do you feel heat from your own brethren within the police department for taking them on on this issue? Because, you know, they say that they have a pretty clean track record, that compared to other police departments around the country who have been lauded by, you know, as being progressive -- for example, the San Diego Police Department -- you know, comparatively, the Cincinnati Police Department has very few fatal shootings per officer, that in fact a Cincinnati cop is 27 times more likely to die at the hands of a black man than a black man is to die at the hands of a Cincinnati police officer -- lots of evidence there.

JOHNSON: Well, I mean, yes, you get heat.

But this profession brings heat. There is heat on all sides. It's not popular being the president of the Sentinel Police Association, an advocacy group, to bridge the gap between the police and the community. That's not popular because there is a mentality in law enforcement that we're all blue and we all need to stick together.

That's why we have the trouble you see with police-community relations across the country, because nobody wants to step outside of the box to tell the truth about what's going on in law enforcement.

Yes, Cincinnati -- it's a good police department, but we can always be better. We can work on our police-community relations and try to dilute at least the perception and/or the reality of how we are interacting in the black community.

LIN: Well, your administration is going to be interacting in the community of Millvale to explain this latest officer-involved shooting.

JOHNSON: Yes.

LIN: Thank you very much, Scotty Johnson...

JOHNSON: Thank you.

LIN: ... Officer Scotty Johnson.

By the way, I want to make mention that we did invite the Cincinnati Police Department to join us in this discussion. They had committed and then they backed out at the last minute.

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