Now your chance to win a thousand dollars entered this nationwide keyward on our website. Unhappy, that's happy answer it now Bill cunning in the Great America. And of course is a great debate going on in our community about the level of law enforcement required in certain areas of our county and throughout the entire county. And there's a different way of looking at things. When I have on Melissa Power's good friend Rob Sanders from Kenton County, they have a different outlook.
When I have on the prosecutor of Campbell County, they have a very harsh outlook. When I talked to Butler County and Warren County, very strong
law enforcement. And we have a debate going on because I watched an interview at Channel five a couple of nights back with the relatively new juvenile court judge Kerry Bloom was in charge of Hamilt County Juvenile Court, and she made the statement that to lock up a juvenile for two or three nights is devastating to that kid, that somehow that'll change the course of their life if they have
to spend one or two or three days. At twenty twenty Auburn, which is j juvenile jail and she doesn't want to send anybody to a night in jail and joining you and I now is Melissa Powers how many County prosecutor? And first of all, I'm not sure if you saw that specific interview, but you know what, you know what to deal with. When you were in juvenile court as a judge, Kerrie Bloom was more or less under your
tutelage as the junior judge. Now he's in charge. Are you concerned that when you have women who's beaten up on metro buses and the four girls are out before the paperwork is completed, are kids downtown committing rather vicious assaults that aren't locked up? Are you concerned about Hambleton County losing its way and being even more reckless than it is now? Well? Absolutely, First, I
do want to make a correction. She was not under my tutelege. She was completely in dependent of me. We had completely different philosophies, we produced different results on our cases. However, I recognized that she was a colleague and she was independent of me. I didn't agree with her decisions. I
didn't agree with her philosophy. She is a soft on crime advocate, as you can tell just by her interview, and if you take her her statement about you can't lock a child up because of the trauma involved in the lockup with them, Basically she's saying, and she does believe this, is that she wants to get rid of the detention facility. We wouldn't even have No one would be held under any circumstances when you go to jail, when you
go to twenty twenty or detention facility, that's a deterrent. People don't want to go there. They don't want to go, They don't want to be there. They don't want especially the juveniles, they don't want to be separated from their families. We get that, their friends, we understand that, but that's the deterrent. When you eliminate that, there's no reason why not to go be somebody up at the on a metro bus, or go steal
from a store when you know nothing's going to happen to you. She's basically saying, crime does pay, and there's nothing to stop somebody from committing crimes. Uh, you want, you need to have consequences, You need to make it uncomfortable. There needs to be responsibility and accountability. If you're going to commit a crime, and when you said the message that we're not. We're dismissing all assault charges, we're dismissing all resisting arrest charges and putting them
on an unofficial dock, at which the conclusion is a dismissal. So we're not going to entire categories of crime. You're not serving the community you're trying to help, and you're not helping the children that you think you're helping.
You're putting them right back into the same neighborhoods that are high risk, extremely vulnerable neighborhoods, making everybody that in that in those neighborhoods less safe in my opinion, Go ahead, Melissa, you said something very important right there that an entire category of criminal offenses have been decriminalized by Judge Bloom, which is, what of the lists that if juvenile also charged with assault, resisting arrest,
a bunch of other crimes which can be felon these or misdemeanors, she puts them on the unofficial docket. There's no record of it, and no one goes to jail for categories of crime, right, You're correct, So, yeah, an entire So basically she is dismantling the Criminal Justice Code. The criminal code, there won't be one, and that's that's the goal.
I think that is the end goal. She doesn't like it. She thinks it's sim racist, systemically racist, and so she doesn't want it to exist, and she's going to recalculate it and reformulate it the way she thinks it should be, which is basically, nobody goes to jail. There shouldn't be jails, nobody should be held pending trial, and then of course used, as I said earlier, categories of crime, they're not being prosecuted in her
court. So when I read all over the media Melissa Powers that the crime rate is down, the crime rate is down, Well, the crime rate is down because we decriminalize crime. That is, you have hundreds of individuals who should be charged with crimes in Hamlin County that aren't charged. And so if the crime rate is down, that's all I have. The crime rate
is down. It's down because juvenile court judges like Kerry Bloom does not believe that anyone should be locked up, and she dismisses when you put on the unofficial docket, that means it's dismissed. So of course the crime rate is down because we don't charge people with crime. And you one other thing before we talk about Rwayne Reading and Russell Bell, You and my wife Penny spent
a lot of time in Room May as young prosecutors calling cases. Can you recall how busy Room May was, which is the place in Hamliny County, all over the county, from the city to Green Township Anderson Township that criminals would be brought and a bond would be said. Have you recently been in
roommate to watch what happens? I have not recently been in. I've seen photos, you know, and some footage, and I'm shocked because, as you said years ago, the courtroom would be packed, absolutely packed to the you know, to the bills keep taken and attorneys you know, standing all over the place, officers everywhere, and it's just empty. It's it's pretty it's it's shocking. And I think they're even using it for storage some of us. I saw something. Yeah, it is. It's really hard to
believe that that's the way, that's where we are. I mean, as far as the Justice Center, there was always problems with overcrowding. We don't have that problem. Now, floors are shut down. In twenty twenty, floors are shut down. So, I mean there's a lot of different things
happening, but it is not the same as it used to be. But getting back to when you're just missing cases or their citizens that don't come forward because they know that justice system is broken when we don't have judges enforcing the law, enforcing making the appropriate punishment for the severity of the crime. So witnesses don't come forward because they're not going to be safe. And it can be anything from a simple case to murder cases to rape cases. Why come
forward? So that's why crime can be down as well. Victims are not coming forward, they won't testify. We how many times do you hear somebody with a shot, But they're not telling the cops who did it? Right? Well, Christ, they know nothing's going to happen. There's nothing going to happen. About a year ago, I had a friend of a friend that had a PBC, a passing bad check, and I go down to get a bond set. That's the last case I had. About a year
and a half ago. I walk into ten to nine and there's like five people there and I walk up to David Wood, who's the county prosecutor, sitting there inside the glass. I said, David, am I in the wrong room. Well what is this? He said, what do you mean? I said, where is everybody? He said, this is what we got. People are not being arrested. Cops are told in Cincinnati don't pull somebody over because you might discover something and get into a frakus. And I'm
glad you brought that up about what's happening in Saint Francis Serif. I had a Paula Christian of Channel nine the other day in Shiri Pololo, and they talked about police cars next to Saint Francis Serif, where drugs are being administered interveniously, that the open sex pools of urine and poop, drug deals, burglaries, and they shut down Republic Street to move it over a block. And I asked many in the city why don't the city cops arrest these individuals?
And it comes down to the city manager, Cheryl Long and the mayor. They don't want they want to be able to say that, you know, crime is down, even though there's hundreds of crime And politically, I mean, how does that Melissa you've been in law enforcement for more than thirty
years, are you a little bit disgusted by this? It's it is very upsetting because and I don't think and I'm glad that you're bringing a light on it, because I don't think that people understand, like the businesses downtown understand. They think, well, our cops are great, Yes, our cops are great. That when they're being told not to make arrest, just just be show a presence. And on the banksy after all the violence we've had that one summer, and no arrest were being made down there. So it
placates the business people and maybe the community. But if you really know what's behind the scenes, they're not making arrest. And then I've had I've talked to people up in Price Hill and they said, you know that they've been they've been hit, had a hit and run on their car with their car, and they won't and they know exactly who did it, and it was an illegal. No, we don't arrest illegals. We don't. We don't
charge, we don't, we don't arrest juveniles. We you know, I mean, these are things that these are being statements being made by the citizens, And I think We need people to be speaking out very loud and questioning what is going on, because why are the why is the city Cincinnati being handcuffed? Why is our police department being handcuffed? And and what what is it? You know basically? So, I mean, it really just keeps goes deeper and deeper. It's not just the judges. It could be you
know, we've got there's a philosophy that it's defund the police. They won't say it, they won't tell you that, but that's what that's basically demoralize the police department, This catch and release programs that they want to enforce. We see it over and over again. And it really isn't about politics in my opinion, it's philosophy and it's about safety. So do you want public safety? Do you want our community to thrive? Do you want businesses to
you know, to come and make investments in downtown Cincinnati? And there's been so much investment, so much good has been done down there, and to see what's happening, it just breaks your heart because I grew up here. I love our city. I want it to be a great place. I want to be, you know, feel comfortable. You know, our family members, you know, to go down or anybody. Everybody should be able
to enjoy what Cincinnati has to offer. Now. Lastly, Wayne Reid and Russell Bell are now in their sixties and they were convicted without question of murdering police officer Charles Berdzel, and I think in a week or two there's going to be a parole hearing for either one or both of them. Explain how the American people can get involved. We the parole hearing date is May thirtieth, and it's very important. The parole board does listen to the public and
the public can put pressure and it does make a difference. So I want to encourage everyone out there to send a message. You go to our website, Hamilton County Prosecutor dot org, so it's HDPRS hcpros dot org. Go to the parole watchtab and it's a form that they can fill out as that you object to the parole being granted to these two cop killers. It was a vicious, tragic, horrible situation. Our victim is he was a US
Army veteran. He served two tours in Vietnam. He was given a purple heart and after he was honorably dischargey it became a Cincinnati police officer, and on this date, back in July of nineteen seventy eight, he came back. He approached and responded to stop the vehicle. And inside the vehicle was Wayne Reid and Russell Bell and they were staking out and casing a convenience store. And an off duty officer saw them and called it in the District five,
and it was Berzol that came. He was on duty and approached the vehicle and asked the occupants to exit, And when Reid exited the car, he fired his handgun at Burzil. It struck him in the face. He fell to the ground. Then as he was laying face down in the street, he was still alive, probably would have survived his injuries. Reid stood over and executed him and shot him two additional times then that killed him. Because of they were on they should have been on death row, but at
the time Ohio had ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. It was a very brief moment in time. So that's what's so offensive about this case. Anybody else, in any other situation, these guys would have been on death row, and they have already been executed by now. But because of this glitch in the law at the time and this ruling that only stood for a brief moment of time, these guys are now they just have a life sentence. Life
in prison without parole was not an option. So they are eligible for parole, which no cop killer should be eligible for parole ever. But you know that wouldn't be a concern of ours. We would think the parole board would keep them in but not nowadays that's not the case, and we just can't trust the parole boards to do the right thing any longer. And we really really need the people in the community to help us hold them accountable by sending
messages to the parole board. We've done this before. We did it on that David Carol case was effective. We were able to keep public pressure kept him in prison. He's David Carroll, if you remember, killed Mike Marcus Paisil the young foster kid. So the pro board will listen if there's public pressure, if they think nobody's paying attention, they'll grant these guys parole.
And they don't deserve it, all right, we got to run. But when you have a juvenile court judge who will not allow a vicious juvenile defendant to be in jail for one day or two days. She thinks that the assault on the mentality of the criminal is somehow outweighing the pain of the victim. We got major problems. We have less crime because we've decriminalized crime, and all of a sudden, cops aren't doing their job. But Wayne Reid
Russell Bell Hamley County Website, Prosecutor's Office once again, Melissa Powers. Always great to speak with you, and thank you for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. Thank you, Missy. All the best to you, Bell. Thank you, God bless you. Let's continue with more and becomes available five one, three, seven four nine, seven thousand. Bill Cunningham News Radio seven hundred. That what you allder Open up our live stream on the iHeartRadio
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