Dan Carroll with Christopher Smitherman -- 12/8/25

so you want to be here for that. When I saw this story over the weekend about the eight point one million dollars that the City of Cincinnati is going to pay out to people who were rioting in the streets of downtown Cincinnati, I wrote this Cincinnati where criminals do no time, where punks and agitators can riot and get paid, and the politicians and judges who allow it

to happen get re elected on a regular basis. Of course, we couldn't let this story pass without having our buddy Chris Smithman, the one time Vice mayor of the City of Cincinnati, the head of the Law and Public Safety Committee, weigh in on this as well. Chris Smitheman, great to have you here. Is that a fair statement that I wrote that punks and agitators can riot and get paid by the city oft Or is that the message that we are going to send when this h when this settlement gets approved.

So this is all gamesmanship from the elected officials downtown. You know, I heard the beginning, which I just think is riveting. That you're you're the lawyer for the gentleman who was viciously attacked in downtown, who city call a white racist, who said council members said, I've got one in the chamber, and you got forty eight hours to arrest somebody white. You heard that lawyer say, I'm not

gonna settle, I'm gonna go to a jury trial. Now, what he's saying here is that a city you are better be prepared to come into a court and explain your actions, not just from the public, but specifically the members of council. The President pro Tien, who said that Holly who was almost, in my estimation, was almost murdered when she hit the ground. You're gonna have to come in the court and explain your words to us. And

you know what's going to happen, Dan Carroll. At the end of that trial, they're going to say this man did not start the fight. Because we've seen the videos. He now knows that he didn't start to fight. And so we know that the city's going to have to settle the case. Now, if we just gave this these group of people eight or ten million, because the lawyers are gonna get two millions, know that they're gonna they're gonna be another level of judgment bombs in the next

couple of years. For this case that we're talking about, where at the at the music festival, we had a group of people that were viciously attacked and ambushed and clearly we can see that they didn't start the fight. We also have Chief Washington, this administration fired him wrongly. A judge has already said you all fired him wrongly. It was appealed. They lost. They're in settlements, Kate, they're in settlement talks right now. But there was a trial.

At least there was there was discussion, and ultimately the judge looked at them and said, you're gonna lose. Now we've got Chief Fiji, our police chief, who's now negotiating. So this isn't just the ten million that I believe. It is the two million to the lawyers in eight point one million in settlement too. As you've indicated, twelve

thousand or so per person. When you put all these cases together, you're probably talking about twenty million dollars or north of that, because we don't know what this gentleman is going to get from downtown. He might get ten or fifteen million dollars himself because you called him a racist on the national stage. How does he repair How does that man repair his reputation when you have the President pro Tien, the chair of Law and Public Safety,

members of council saying go arrest somebody white. So when you talk about this to me, it's the context, Dan Carroll, of all of that together, and this is the most outrageous thing that you would see because in the future, what's going to happen is we have some incident that's that's five hundred miles away from the city of Cincinnati and which we had nothing to do with George Floyd, meaning our officers did not suffocate George Floyd. We have

nothing to do with it. But people decide that they were going to come down and block our highways and set things on fire and break into business is and one officer was shot. He had a he had a helmet on, so his ballistic helmet stopped him. If not, we would have one of our officers killed in downtown. You're gonna You're gonna pay out eight point one million dollars.

And I want the president of the FOP to understand that the position here from the city is the problem is the city should have fought the case and said we're going to go to trial. We're gonna put We're gonna put everybody on trial and figure it out, not get in a room and settle the case and make the taxpayers pay that kind of money.

But now we have to go back and say our police officers need additional training. Is IRIS really going to be in charge of the training now? Is are we going to hear from some some you know, community organizers on how police ought to deal with these issues?

And then, Chris Smitheman, what if you're one of the ones who are out there and did not get arrested, did not spend a night And I'm and I'm told by people who are close to the situation that this notion that there weren't bathrooms available, a water or a blanket because they might have spent the night waiting to be processed into the justice center. What about the people who didn't get arrested, who didn't spend the night out there?

How do you reconcile that If someone right next to you who did get arrested winds up getting a twelve thousand dollars payday and you're sitting there with nothing, how do you How do you deal with that if you're one of those people?

it's just it's just completely out rapist. Let me also say that John Cranley, if he's listening, if his father and mother are listening, you know, if his wife is listening, his son is listening. John Cranley, you are a great mayor. You made the right decision at the right time. You saved our city from being put on fire. Right, this is this is where you have the blue dog Democrats like the John Cranleys, the Tom Lukens, the Charlie Lucins,

who really don't exist anymore. They've been marginalized by this very liberal left part of the Democratic Party. And anybody who doesn't believe that the left has taken over the city of Cincinnati. These are the kinds of decisions because because our mayor, our city manager, nor the city solicitor had to settle this case, they made the decision we're going to settle the case. I believe that this thing would have gone to trial. They wouldn't have found a

jury in our in our county, in our state. Even if they had moved venue, they wouldn't have found anybody that would have said that our Mayor John Cranley and facing that what was happening with George Floyd, with highways and streets being blocked, things set on fire, businesses being robbed, an officer being shot, that we're gonna sit back and pay eight point one million dollars out to anybody. Now, the peaceful protesters, you and I aren't discussing. I don't

you know. I can engage in a peaceful protest. That's that's not the issue. And so the people who protested peacefully, I don't have a beef with that. That's why I love this country. My first amendment right, my second Amendment right. There's no issue with that. Visu here is that every every everybody wasn't doing that if and there wouldn't have been fires, streets blocked, businesses robbed and broken into. So every everybody wasn't peaceful, and so you're rewarding that bad behavior,

Dan Carroll, And that's what you're worried about. And at the backdrop of it, and I'm gonna say this publicly, is that this is a way that people try to say racism. This is about racism, This is about white people doing stuff to African Americans, African Americans, and not that everybody that was arrested was African American. That's not

what I'm saying. It's this notion that our institution in itself is racist and that we weren't out there doing our job the city that we're governed to protect, we're sworn to protect. And you're gonna see that come out in the trial of the white guy who was beat up and ambushed in downtown. His lawyer is taking the right position that our city solicitors should have taken. Let's take this thing to court. I'm not gonna settle. We're

gonna I want a trial. I want you to dismiss all of the all of the dog one charges against my client, because when that's all over, you know what's going to happen. He's gonna sue the city of Cincinnati and win.

demonstrations and fights going on out in the streets. And then these individuals tried to bring the same thing to the city of Cincinnati, and guess what, it didn't happen in the city of Cincinnati because of the actions they were taken by our law enforcement and by Mayor John Cranley. I had my differences with John Cranley over the years, but I think in this instance he did the exact right thing. Put the curfew in place, shut it down, limited the damage, and did what was right for the

people of Cincinnati. And he said, he commented on the Fox nineteen p that was put out over the weekend, he said that curfew in our police department saved our city when other cities were burning. Everything I saw was of the utmost professionalism and restraint, and their actions saved our city. I want the record to show that they did a great job. And so now we have to for all these protesters who were out there and claimed

about that. You know, they they might have been a little uncomfortable when they were getting booked into the Hamilton County Justice Center that we're going to cough up eight point one million dollars to satisfy them and make this go away, and then set ourselves up for future protesters to do the exact same thing. To me, is just despicable and there's no way this should be happening.

have you lost your mind? If you think that I'm going to be somebody that's gonna kneel to you, you have lost your total mind. Now. My problem was, unfortunately, and this needs to change, I had to leave my weapon in my car every time I got out, and I'm looking at this craziness happening around City Hall. Because

we had our swat team in the basement. They're all lined up prepared because they're all surrounding City Hall as we're going in, right, I'm saying, when I got into that basement, from the door all the way down that hallway, we had to have our swat teams out there. These dudes that are big as big as elephants now they're just bative dudes like linemen, and they're down there in

all of that. I shook everybody's hands as I went down that hallway, but I had had some guy outside as I'm walking in tell me that I needed to kneel. And I'm an African American. This is a white dude telling me I need to kneel. Kneel for what? Brother, what the heck are you talking about? That is how crazy it was down there during that period of time, right that, where people are trying to make us feel uncomfortable as we're trying to do the business of the city.

It is unbelievable. And I'm going to emphasize here John Cranley did a great job if he had not made the decisions he made. And by the way, I was on and off the phone with John, I was the vice mayor at the time. As he was trying to sort it all out and make the decisions he was making, so John Cranley and I don't want to detach from the mayor here. He was making very good decisions, and I was doing the very best I could as his vice mayor to advise him on how to make good

decisions to protect the city of Cincinnati. But they were his decisions to make, and I am glad he made them. If he hadn't done it, as you indicated, Dan, here, downtown would have been on fire.

We need to stand up as a city for what's right and send the message that you cannot come into our city and agitate and do property damage and ignore lawful orders of the Mayor of the City of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Police and not expect to be paid for We've got one minute, let's.

nothing to do with the city of Cincinnati. That's the most important part of here. We've gone through the collaborative agreement, we've had, federal oversight, saw Green has given us the green light. This is the greatest Cincinnati Police Department. People come from all over the world to see how we do policing in the city of Cincinnati. This is a flap in the face. Obviously, counsel will rubber stamp this tomorrow.

I don't have anything that they'll do anything different. Cheryl, thank you so much.