Seven oh six to fifty five krs DE talk station. By the time, I's pushing everyone a very happy Thursday slash Friday Eve and welcoming back. Always a pleasure to have him on FOP. President Ken Kover representing Chapter sixty nine in Fraternal Order Police. That's the Sinsint Police Department. Ken, excuse me, good to heavy back on the show to this morning.
Thank good morning, Brian. How are you.
I'm doing fine, Just kind of going over some of the comments from AFT pro Voll State of the City. Youth violence obviously brought up numerous times, although he did claim that during the State of the City said he claimed that youth violence is down more than thirty five
percent this calendar year. And I was scratching my head over that one, because I know there have already been more youth involved in incidents at the various transit centers which seemed to be a magnet for these young punk kids and crimes more this year so far than the entire calendar your last year. So you tell my listeners where are we in terms of crime generally speaking, in youth crime specifically.
Well, when you look at like transit center stuff, those are things that typically disorder, kids just fighting where you know, an assault report is never generated, so those things don't get thrown into stats. So you know, the reportable crime may be down, but I could tell you with the officers that go to these transit centers every day after school, they're going to tell you that juvenile violence is absolutely still a problem.
Well, is there something that's behind it other than the obvious social realities of maybe you know, not having a mom and dad at home taking care of them and minding the store, or I don't know, is this on the uptick for any particular reason that you can put your finger on that's sort of differ from the norm.
Now, not really other than the fact that they now have a place to gather, you know, with all these transit centers popping up, you know, instead of having these kids just burst throughout you know, other avenues of transportation, they're now going to central locations where gives them an opportunity fifteen twenty minutes to wait for a bus. And well know that if you give kids time to be silly, they're going.
To be silly.
Well, no question about that. So this really is all about getting to and from school and using the metro buses to do it, and having to gather together in one place, concentrated, which obviously welcomes the opportunity for violence between young people. So we're down to transit for public schools. Is that really that? That's it, isn't it?
Yeah? Absolutely?
I mean this these weren't problems seven, eight, nine years ago when CPS had they're unbussing, you know where you were picking up the bus in your own neighborhood and going to schools. We just didn't see these problems now that obviously that they're using these transit centers. I mean, look at Oakley. Oakley has never been a problem. Now all of a sudden, this transit center there has been a hub for issues in Oakley and it's starting to terrorize their neighborhood.
Well, what a crying shame that is. Has anybody going back to the well and talked about maybe going back to the way it used to be in terms of transit, Well.
I think the biggest problem they've had is the fact that CPS leadership has been changing. They don't have a permanent you know, director superintendent for Cincinnati Public Schools. So you know, just like the police department was when you have an interim achieved for interim director, they're not going to make any kind of extreme changes or drastic changes until they have a permanent role. And that's that typically ends up being a problem that we see all the time.
But instance that police department. If you have an interim everything's going to be status quo until a permanent person's named.
Well, what a shame that is this? I mean, this is a problem that's screaming for a solution, a solution that seems to be I mean, you bring it up here this morning. Go back to the old ways the transit system. The kids aren't going to be congregating together for a long periods of time. You'll have an end of violence at least at these transit centers. That's a
simple solution, simple fix. It doesn't require a permanent position to do it, just requires someone with the willpower to start implementing it and figuring out how to pay for it.
Right.
No, I mean, these are simple concepts to you and I, but I guess they become very complex when you get to that level of leadership. And I guess they're just afraid to make changes until they know who's going to ultimately be in charge.
Well again, I'll repeat crying shame now you mentioned reportable crimes. I have this theory and perhaps maybe you, as the FOP president, can cover, can confirm it or deny it. In the aftermath of all the old the defund the police and the police are evil, it's inherently racist thing. Blah blah blah blah blah. Hopefully we have gotten past that nonsense and or back to supporting our men and women in uniform because they do keep our neighborhoods safe.
But the bubble seem to have gotten burst in so far as law and law enforcement's morale. When you have a revolving door of crime and you don't get rewarded by seeing the purp that you busted your hump chasing down in the streets see justice, you're less inclined to maybe arrest them or report a crime. Is that still kind of a concept going on? Because I keep reading that, well,
violent crimes down, this gets down, and it's down. It could be down simply because nobody's reporting crimes that happen.
Yeah, I think that the biggest impact on this isn't necessarily with the police, because you know, the police, if they know, they're going to go and there. If somebody calls the police danser for a report to be done, they're going to go complete the report. But to your point, what's happening, and we've seen this, I've talked to officers about this, is that you have people that go, look, sports system is not going to do anything to him anyway. So I'm just not even going to report this right
because they don't want to waste their time. They don't want to go down to court, you know, and and spend two or three different appearances down there for some defendant to maybe show up, maybe not show up, and then ultimately when the case comes to a conclusion, they get nothing.
Out of it.
So I think, quite honestly, there's some citizens you know, that are victims of crime that are fed up with the justice system and say, nothing's going to happen to these people. So you know, the heck with him, I'm not even gonna bother reporting it.
Well, that has me a little down. I'm not going to ask you to stick your nose in matters political. It might not be good for you, but you can feel free to chime in if you prefer to. But I'm a little worried. Now with the post election, we have Connie Pillach and Charmaine McGuffey is stays in her role, so we kind of have a handle on how that's going to be at the Sheriff's office. But with Connie Pillach's Hamilton County prosecutor, we don't have a Melissa Powers
tough on crime prosecutor any longer. That, coupled with a lot of the woke judges we have, which we know are very very soft on crime, have any perception of whether this is going to get worse before it gets better?
Well that's the million dollar question.
I know.
I was asked this the day after the election with some of the local media, and I'm actually going to meet with Connie Pillage tomorrow. She and I exchange some texts. She seemed very very interested to meet with me. But those are some of the questions that I'm going to ask her. Is you know what's this going to look like? Because ultimately it doesn't matter who the prosecutor in this county is as far as law enforcement, because we work
with the prosecutor's office. To your point, you know, if things are trending to where we are going to just be soft on crime.
It is certainly going to make a huge impact.
But I think it's one of those things where I think we are best to just wait and see. You know, Connie's really an unknown because she hasn't been a county prosecutor. So I think always can really do right now is just buckle up and see how things are going to go. I mean that's really the only choice we really have.
At this point our heads and pray, how are things at the since a police department. From a morale standpoint, you haven't any uh uh, I think getting any better because all the reports I keep getting and I'm not asking you to agree with me or disagree, but I can't find any of my since a police department friends or little birds that normally whisper in my ear about matters involved in the since police that have much of good news. And so far as morale is concerned.
You know, every day is a challenge, and I've talked about this before, where it really depends on where you work. You know, some districts are tougher than others to work in. You know, some districts face more violent crime than others. You know, it's it's one of these things where I know, certainly getting our contract done and getting a significant raise certainly helps a little bit, but that's certainly not the end all be all, so and we just keep on
plugging along. I know this last week, I was a couple of different trainings, and you know, we had a council member that wanted to come to show support. In my career, I don't think we've ever had a time where we have Cincinnati council members that are willing to come just to say thanks for being there.
So it does seem like the pendulum.
Is starting to swing badly to where law enforcement is being appreciated, but we're certainly not seeing it yet in the courts. And that's a huge impact on morale. As to your point, you go arrest somebody that's you get done fighting with and only to find out that they're going to get probation or they don't even get convicted, that certainly is something that will extremely, extremely have a big impact on morale.
Well, I suppose that's a conversation you would obviously have with Connie pill It's like, listen, Connie, we would love for you to be tough on crime, and this woke nonsense obviously hasn't done any city in the United States of America a whit's worth of good. Look at how deteriorated these cities have become, look at how the reversals are happening across this country. So start on the right foot being tough on crime. I think that's a reasonable request.
And then how about leaning on some of these woke judges and telling them listen that those days are over. We are not doing ourselves any service by letting people who are violent and have committed multiple crimes in the community out on no bond or with very light sentences. I think that's that's an easy ask ka Connie Billich whether the judges will listen to her. But she's got to have more poll with the woke judges than a Melissa Powers would have.
Sure, I mean, you look at what went on in Seattle and San Francisco and how they're now backtracking, Yeah, trying to fix all of these crazy policies. Let's hope that Cincinnati and the elected officials learned that it did not work there and now they're all backtracking.
Let's not even go there to begin.
With amen to that, and real quick before we part company. Ken cob or FLP president. Any comments on the Addison police dissolving. I did help this morning when I was a kid. You know, I'm fifty nine revealing how old I am. But you know you did not You didn't go one mile an hour over the speed limit when you were cruising through Addison. You would get pulled over. It was like they had some reason. They were really, really,
really tough on speeding. But overall speaking your reaction to the dissolution of the police department.
There, well, you know it's the Addison police departments had had troubles for years with funding and now you know, with having their their main source of tax revenue being the plant right there on the Ohio River closing, which I saw a stat that that accounts for three hundred of their eight hundred thousand dollars a year in revenue. I mean, I get it. I mean what else are
you supposed to do? I mean, I know it's a tough decision, but you have the Hamlin County Sheriff's Department that patrols in that kind of southwestern part of the county. You know they're more than capable, you know, folks, But it's a hit anytime a police department is forced to close, but I don't know what other choice they would have had.
Well with that loss of funding, I tend to agree with you. I wasn't aware that that was the such a sizeable share of their budget. So any event, Hamilton County Sheriff's Office will be covering the territory, and I trust they'll do a decent job. Ken, Cover, Thanks for what you do. God bless the Cincinnt Police Department and the men and women who serve so proudly and keep us protected and safe. We have your back and the back of the police Department here in the fifty five
CARSS Morning Show. Ken. I'll look forward to having you back on the program real soon, hopefully with some good news.
Yeah, that'd be great, Brian, thanks for having me.
Happy to do it. Good luck with your meeting with Connie. I hope it goes really, really well. Seven eighteen Right now fifty five Carosee de Talk Station. She is that Low's Camp. What a wonderful lady she is. You will love working with her. And why would you do that? Mortgages? She is that Low's Camps with Cross Country Mortgage. If you hear my voice, then you're in one of the fifty States or the or Puerto Rico. She can handle you.
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