By Billy Cunningham, the Great America. Welcome this Monday at Dude in the tri State. The Reds completely the last six games. They went three and three. The last couple of games in Chicago not so good, but nonetheless I'll take us to three and three road tripped back out of tonight, Tuesday and Wednesday in Milwaukee, and we continue. But joining you and I now is Mark Pete Meyer. And for those who may not know, he spent like
thirty to forty years in the prosecutor's office. He knows where the bodies are buried all over Hamleton County many many years ago. And then whenever riots at Lucasville, the state of Ohio looked around and said, who do we find in the state of Ohio to prosecute the criminals who've killed guards and other inmates at Lucasville. And that
guy twenty years ago was Mark Pete Meyer. And since then he's been with every prosecutor for the last thirty five years, beginning with Artnay and then Joe Eaters, then Mike Allen, then Joe Dieters, and then since then he's been with Connie Pillach, Melissa Powers. He's been there and knows where the bodies are buried. Once again to Mark Pete Meyer, Welcome to the Bill Cunningham Show. And first of all, Mark, many are uncertain as to what a
grand jury does. This is in relationship to what's going to happen to the Cincinnati cop to be indicted or not indicted for the killing of Ryan Hinton about a month ago or so. So can you tell the American people? Do the grand jurors come from Mount Olympus, how are they selected? What's it like in the grand jury room? And formed the American people some of the basics.
Okay, And first of all, Bill, I actually started forty four years ago for sy Lee, so four.
Holy god, you're not that old, are you.
No. I came right out of Roger Bacon High School into the prosecutor's office. So yeah. But anyway, the grand jurors are selected just like a regular jury. To brand seiss Is the juror commissioner. Every two weeks they subpoena probably around sixty or so people that are just on
the voting roles, just like regular jurors. They show up down the jury Commissioner's office, they go before the presiding judge and Out of the sixty years so that are notified, maybe thirty five to forty show up and our prosecutors talk to them to make sure nobody has a conflict. If you don't get paid by your job, you're excused. If you've got to schedule vacation, or if you have any kind of particular reason, you can't serve. But out of that we winto it down to twenty two people
every two weeks. So every other Monday, twenty two people are served picked to serve on two grand juries. They are brought over to our office. We give them like a one hour introduction video of how to be a grand juror. From there they start their service. So there are eleven jurors actually that are sitting in the grand
jury room to hear every case. After the case is presented, two of them will step out, just their kind of alternates, and they take turns doing that, and they make the decision who's going to step out, And at that point, the only people in the grand jury room or the nine grand jurors, they have already heard the evidence, the prosecutors told them the law, and they vote whether or not to indate each of these grand jurors. Probably here's fifteen to twenty cases a day, so they we kind
of rust these cases through pretty quickly. Anytime someone is arrested for a felony, that case has to go to the grand jury. If you're locked up, it has to go to the grand jury within ten days. If you're out on bond, it's got to be within fifteen days. And if that's not done, the case is dismissed. So the grand jurors deliberate, and again they may only deliberate a minute. Most of these cases are pretty cut and dry.
They take a vote and the nine grand jurors, at least seven of them, have to vote to indict a case for it to go forward. That's called a true bill. If six or less vote to indict, it's not enough and the case is ignored. So it's in the grand jury room. The only people in the gend injury room is the witness testifying, the prosecutor, and the grand jurors. In the old days, we had a court reporter, but now everything is recorded, so there's no defendant, there's no
defense attorney, there's no judge. It's just the prosecutor, the witness, and the grand jurors.
And what's the standard of proof. So I've heard some civilians say, you know what, you can diet a ham sandwich, you've been involved in litterally tens of thousands of felony indictments, And can the prosecutor direct give word by inflection of voice of what the prosecutor might say. You know, you might say, well, I don't think this is much of a case, but we're going to present it to you anyway. Or you might say, you know what, I think this
is a serious case. I think you should indict. How much influence would you have in the grand jury when it comes to their decision.
Yeah, we don't really make a closing argument, but we don't want a grand juror to indict the case that we can't prove. So we tell them that in common police court it's got to be proofed beyond the reasonable doubt, and you need to be convinced basically to that same level before you indict the case. I know some people say it's only probable cause, but again, we don't think
it's fair. And every prosecutor I serve for from sy Lease to Countie Pillage doesn't want a grand jury to indict a case that they think maybe the person did. That's not the standard we rely on. So it's got to be a solid case. Again, we don't want to have to go into a courtroom and try to prove a case that maybe didn't even happen.
In fact, if you don't want a case in diet it, you don't present it at all. Correct. If you look at all the evidence, you talk to the witnesses, talk to the investigating officer, could be from Green Township, from Madera, from the city of Cincinnati. And if when you were in charge, which in forty four years you're like the first sergeant of the whole brigade. If you're saying I don't think there's a case here, you don't present it the first place.
Correct, Correct, that's correct. We will actually go back to the municipal court, have a municipal court judge sign an entry dismissing the case, especially if the person's locked up. I mean, we move as fast as we can. Sometimes the lab report will come back negative it's a drug case. It may be any other kind of case where we rely on some kind of chemical test and if it comes back that it's not a drug or it's not
this again, we will not even present the case. So those are the cases that are signed by the police. Now there's another category of cases that are called direct hearings, where the police haven't signed to charge yet they present the case to us and we decide that we will go direct to the grand jury. Good example of that was the Marcus Fisel case, the little boy that was
hit by the foster parents. That's the case that Joe neither decided that we were going to present to the grand jury, and we actually subpoened to the grand jury the suspects in the case, which was Liz and David Carroll and Amy Baker, who was the living girlfriend of Dave. And at that particular case, Liz Carroll actually ended up confessing in the grand jury when she was questioned by myself and cho Theaters and Dan Bryer from Butler count or from Claremont County. So it's kind of a rare
situation where a defendant will appear. But in that particular case, they were so cocky and so arrogant that they were going to get away with what they did. They said, bring it on, bring it on. Joe Dieters up here before the grand jury, and it turned that back from them.
Mark Pete Myer on police shootings cases You've been involved in everyone for the last forty some years. Do you present to the grand jury a police shooting case that you do not believe you can prove a trial that you don't believe it should be indicted Having there have been numerous circumstances, including the last five or six months in which there were police shootings, I think are the one that you and Connie Pillage said, we're not going to present this at all.
If it's a clear cut justifying police shooting, we will not present it. That's not all counties act that way, but in a case where we believe, you know it, Basically, if a suspect points a gun out an officer and the officer shoots the person, it's not going to be presented. If there's any threat to the officer or to anyone else in the public and the officer ends up firing,
it's not going to be presented. Now, sometimes it's a I don't want to say a close call, but it's something I give you an example, the Beaver Creek Walmart case that I was asked to call it in to handle buck up in Green County that ten years ago, there was so much public protest and so much public discussion about that. I myself believed it was a justified police shooting. But basically so, you wouldn't have this prosecutor
from several counties away making the decision. I made the decision to present it to the Green County grand jury, and they unanimously ignored the case within about a minute of me closing the door and walking out of the room. So again, sometimes even though a case we believe it was justified, there's so much public input and comment and discussion about it. Times a safer course of action is okay, say, okay, we will present it to a grand jury. We'll let
some citizens look at this and make the decision. And sometimes it's I don't want to say it's good cover, but it's just policy. I think to actually take that extra step in cases where it may be a close call.
You had a case I forget that it was on I seventy five. I think someone that didn't speak of the English very well, who confronted a police officer and he was shot, and this was about two or three months ago under Connie Pillach. Why why did you not present that case to the grand jury?
Because he hain't believed that the person was a threat to the officer. The officer did not know he did not understand English, but he wasn't following his commands. It looked like he had his hand in his pocket. He's told to get his hands out, and then all of a sudden, he brings it out of his pocket towards the officer. The officer fired a shot. We actually went out to the scene on that one. And again it's something that if it's a credible threat and one thing too.
You know, it's a split second decision by a police officer, and it's the only job I can think of that if you make a mistake in that split second, you may be going to prison. You know, if Jamar Chase drops a touchdown pass, he doesn't go to prison. If Joe Burrow throws a pick six, or if Eli data Cruz struts out ten times in a row, they can't go to prison for making mistakes. The police officer is the only person I can think of that if you make a decision in a split second that turns out
to be wrong, you absolutely face jail time. And that's something we've taken the mind in presenting these kinds of cases. It's the last thing a police officer wants to do is fire is gun and he's called into situations that we cannot handle ourselves. There's a threat, help, I need the police. We call them into those situations, and again we take that in mind when considering how the police officer acted in that situation.
I'm thinking about what happened to the Taste of Cincinnati. Of course, you were out of the office about you left the office about a month month and a half ago, and the Taste of Cincinnati A shooting. Guy's name was Jabbari Johnson. He was breaking into cars and unbeknownst to the two police officers on Fountain Square, he was armed. He comes out of the Taste about after midnight as it's closing down. Please identify him through a ring camera
as someone may have been breaking into cars. They asked him, hey, they didn't know who he was at the time, as hey, stop, we want to talk with it. He took off like a jackrab but a cop about fifty yards away pulled out his taser to stop him from running. But unbeknownst to them, as he was pulling out his taser. Jabari Johnson was reaching for a gun in the waist and his waistband and the cop didn't really know that. And fortunately the barbs hit the body of Jabari Johnson and
he had the effect. And he then the gun that he was going to use to kill two police officers on Fountain Square after the taste kind of hit the pavement and the officer pulled out a taser thinking it was a taser needed. He should have pulled out his gun, but he didn't know he was armed. Now, the Ryan Hinton situation, he was clearly armed and it appears unlikely according to the video. You can prove one way or
another he pointed the gun at the cop. Is it critical irrespective of Ryan Hinton, if someone is in possession of a gun in his hand, do you have to wait until he points it at you to respond? No.
I mean to me, if you've got a person armed with a gun, and in this particular case, I know the person was out of view of the one officer, he's in the view of another officer and a brother officerer is yelling gun, gun. That's telling me that this guy has a gun that's visible and it's a threat. So to me, no, you don't. Again, you wait that split second for him to point the gun at you, and he might shoot before you can. So it's a lot to ask again of a police officer who will
put into these situations to be perfect. You know, you can take the video and flow motion and you can do the Monday Morning quarterback, but that's not the luxury the officer has on the seat. He's got to make that split second decision. And the burden is basically, was the officer justified in using deadly force to protect himself or the public. That's basically what a jury is told in those kind of situations, and it's an objective test.
But again, you can't Monday Morning quarterback these things. You've got to put yourself in his shoes what he was facing at the time.
Now Monday money quarterbacking. I'm holding a statement issued by the City of Cincinnati here, and it says that one of the suspects pulled a semi automatic handgun and pointed it at an officer. If the video is incorrect, a video cannot be incorrect. It is what it is. But said the officer fired his weapon, hitting the suspect. The arm suspect is to seize. No officer were injured, and Chief Police Teresa Thiji, some have said she made a
tactical air. The day after the shooting, she held a news conference and said that the gun was pointed at the officer, that he was shot in the chest and the bullet went out his back and in reality according to the coroner's office, Mark Pete Meyer forty five years in the prosecutor's office according to the coroner, and I think last me some Marco is about the best there is that the kill shot went about four inches below his left arm, put exit at the front of his chest.
Is the fact, assuming the chief of police made a misstatement of fact, the reality might have been different. Is that critical As far as indicting a police officer, I.
Don't believe so. And against the perception of the officer, it is a split second thing. And again the fact that another officer is yowing to.
Him gun gun.
It's that are increased awareness and as soon as you see this person, you know in your mind you may believe it is pointed at you or it's about to be pointed at you, but it's you don't have to wait. You don't have to put yourself in harm's way before you defend yourself. That's the way we would look at those kind of cases again.
And I look at the cases, and there was two in Nashville. There was two cops in and around Columbus that had a fleeing suspect and they didn't pull out their weapons immediately. And he's running away, and he's running away, but he reaches with his right hand under his left armpit and fire shots out the cops and hits two of them. They go down, and one of the officers was able to return fire, shooting the assailant who was
running away. That was identical to Ryan Hinton. Situation identical, and you would not even think about indicting the police officers who survived the shooting, even though they did not know. They did not know he had a gun until he fired it. They just went to a scene and the guy's running away and then they get shot, then they respond.
That's how close. Now for the police officer in Cincinnati directly involved, the last thirty days has been hell for him because I would think he's worried about getting indicted. He's worried about his life, his work life, being over as we know it. And I had on Connie Pilich about two or three weeks ago and on a Friday, she told me, this was like ten days after the event took place, that she had seen no evidence to indicate that any police officer committed a crime. And that's
what she said. And I had on the corner thereafter who said that the kill shot came from under the armpit. Now, there was a bullet that went into his body and lodged in the back of his neck, but she said that wasn't that wasn't an entry room in the back, and that she refused to say he was shot in the back, which is what the activists are saying. And so lastly I'll ask you this, Mark Pete Meyer, if if this case is presented to the grand jury at this point, is grand jury subpoena is out but the
grand jury's not heard the case. What's the differential between grand jury subpoena is being out and a grand jury convened to hear this case or those different things.
Yeah, grand jury subpoena would be issued, maybe to the coroner's office to get all their records. That might be issued to Cincini police to get all the body camera footage so that Connie and the other people in the office kept guying, and Seth Tiger, maybe a Heidi Rosalie can look at the and Katie Burrows some of the key people there in Mark Tierney can look at all the evidence and then they will make a decision based on everything they've seen. Is this something they have to
present to a brand jury. But again, I think they will look at it and everything I've seen so far that you know, Connie hasn't really changed the way she approaches these cases then any of the other prosecutors I worked for did. Is that you're going to, you know, do the right thing, and if there's not enough there to to adet or if you don't think there's enough there that you would want to actually try the case, then you don't present it. And if some people want
to criticize you about it. I know Joe Dieters, you know, over the years to go out of criticism and he said, hey, if run against me in four years in you know, if you don't like the job I'm doing. And I think they're continuing that same tradition in the office today.
And the standard of Connie Pillage is do I believe if I cause an indictment to be issued against this police officer in Cincinnati, do I believe I can get a conviction at trial? Is that the standard?
Yes, it's I believe that that's a standard we use, and I believe she would use the same one. Is this something if the grand jury, you know, you can't present it to the grand jury and they indicted, and you come out and say, well, even though the grand jury indicted, I'm going to dismiss the case. That would be wrong. You have to live with their decisions. So to me, you would not present a case unless you're ready to go to court with it.
Are you confident Connie Pillage will make the right decision?
I am. Everything I've seen of what she's done so far in the office and the people she's put in place in the office, I believe she'll do the right thing.
Mark Pete Maer, I trust you implicitly. Once again, thank you for your forty five years of service, beginning with Side Lease and ending with Connie Pillage. You've seen it all, You've done it all, and once again, thanks for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. I say this quite often, but Mark Pete Meyer, You're a great American. Thank you.
Okay, thank you, Bill, goodbye.
God bless you. Let's continue with more. There it is. And the only bad part as we sit here on what June the second, in the afternoon, is that this police officer is still held in abey and so let's continue with more. Bill Cunningham News next to Jerome of the Reds News Radio seven hundred WLW