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American Morning
Cincinnati Curfews Curbs Violence
Aired April 14, 2001 - 09:00 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are going to turn to the violent protests in Cincinnati. An overnight curfew was lifted just two hours ago. The emergency measure appears to have worked. Things are calm after days of unrest following the fatal police shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager.
Our national correspondent Bob Franken joins us now from Cincinnati with the latest -- Bob, good morning.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
As a matter of fact, it was a bit eerie, Daryn. The streets of Cincinnati went, in one night, from dangerous to desolate.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Eight p.m. in Cincinnati: the strict curfew begins. And after three days of racial violence, the streets are now quiet, nearly empty; and this is a strict curfew. Teams of police sweep through the same neighborhoods that the night before bristled with trouble. Now, anyone caught outside without the proper reason is simply arrested by order of the mayor.
MAYOR CHARLES LUKEN, CINCINNATI, OHIO: The message -- the single message -- the only message that we want to communicate to the citizens of this city is that the violence must stop, and the violence will stop.
FRANKEN: Still, it is tense.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma'am, there's a curfew. You need to be inside. I suggest you do it very quickly, please, ma'am, otherwise, you'll be arrested.
FRANKEN: In many areas of the city police stand with guns drawn; on the alert, they say, for snipers. But the night passes without serious incident. The anger over the shooting death of an unarmed 19- year-old African-American man by a policeman is largely expressed at a packed town meeting called by the NAACP at a neighborhood church.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Mfume, can you please use your political clout to call these pigs off tonight?
FRANKEN: The organization's national president, Kweisi Mfume, pleads for an end to the violence but demands action by the city to address decades of charges that Cincinnati police are brutally hostile toward African-Americans.
KWEISI MFUME, NAACP PRESIDENT: This can't wait two months or three months down the road. There is an imperative here for fair deliberations and for equal justice.
FRANKEN: But before deliberations and justice, city officials insist that calm must be restored.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step back please; step back please.
FRANKEN: And for one night, calm is restored at gunpoint.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: The curfew has got an indefinite aspect to it. City officials have not decided when it is over. But, at the same time, they are under pressure to deal with the underlying causes of the confrontation that caused them to have to put this curfew in effect -- Daryn.
KAGAN: All right, Bob Franken in Cincinnati, thank you.
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