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Eight oh five Here fifty five cars de talk station. Happy Wednesday, the return of Judgjennval Paula Tano at the bottom of the hour.
He's back from vacation.
I'll sit here from Pimlin County Prosecutor Mark Tokulby did a great job getting this miserable pervert convicted child molester. He was ninety three counts to get the details on that. What a wonderful coup or victory that is for the entire community. And elections have consequences and sometimes we make great choices. One of the great choices the city made, said Judge Betsy Sunderman. She was elected the Domestic Relation
Court in November twenty two. Prior to that, served as a Hamilon County Probig Court magistrate for five years on Sinceei City Council for two years. You all remember that under She's also an assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor for thirteen years in the Juvenile Dependency drug forbaritsure municipal in appellad divisions. Lots of experience and a woman who knows what she's doing. Welcome in the Morning Show, Judge Betsy Sunderman. It's a pleasure to have you on today.
Thanks for having me on.
I always enjoy talking to you. So the summary of our subject matter in three simple words. Curfews don't work. Now, Can I just guess that maybe that's because no one enforces the curfew. The police don't bother picking people up that violate curfew because it's a waste of their time because nothing ever happens to the ones they pick up. I don't know, Judge Sunderman. That's why we've got you on.
Today, exactly.
So, about three weeks ago, I was in Indianapolis with my little girls. We went to see Wicked, the show, and there was a lot of crime that night right around our hotel where we stayed, and juveniles were shooting at each other. And Indianapolis put in a juvenile curfield and they started enforcing it right away, and you know, citing juveniles, citing their parents. And then about a week later, Cincinnati had a juvenile curfield and I just knew it would not be enforced the same way. And I have
been correct. So our city has a tendency to create these laws so that people feel good. So people like me, Oh, I feel good because now they're taking care of it. Now they're creating a law, right, But then by not enforcing it, then the people who don't like the law are happy. So it's a it's a win win for the city. People feel good on both sides. Right. Last week there was a press conference. The city manager said, we're considering.
Enforcing the the operative word enforcing.
So she said, you were considering it, So that means that they weren't enforcing it before, right, So why create a law that you're not going to enforce, So she said, we're considering enforcing it. She said, our plan is that if the police find a juvenile out after curfew, they're going to bring the juvenile to a curfew center.
And she said the curfew center.
I don't want to exactly say where it is, but it's with one of our trusted partners, so I don't know if it's the rec center or what.
I have no idea. And then once the kids.
Are brought to the curfew center, their parents are called and then the parents are asked to come pick them up. I can only imagine a lot of the parents would be very wary getting a call from a police officer saying, hey, we'd love to talk to you about your child who was breaking the curfew. I'm guessing a lot of the parents would not want to go to that meetup, right.
I also know from talking to police officer friends of mine that they've been told that even if they can't get a hold of the parents, they're supposed to release the juvenile. And so what's the point of that, right, So there's absolutely no consequence. So just reminds me of when I was on city council during COVID and they made a mask mandate in the city. Remember that, Yeah, yes, so they made a mask mandate and I had a
lot of questions about it. I said, okay, what happens if someone goes to a restaurant and they refuse to wear a mask?
And in the.
City said, well, this will just empower business owners to tell people to wear a mask. And I said, okay, and then what if the person still refuses to wear a mask And they said, oh, well, I guess the business owner could call the health department and then the health department could tell the person that they should wear a mask. And I said, Okay, then what happens if
the person won't wear a mask? And they said, well, they said, I guess we could send someone from the health department to the restaurant and then they could tell the person face to face.
To wear a mask.
And I said, okay, so then what happens when the person doesn't want to wear a mask? And they said, well, we don't want to find anyone, we don't want to arrest anyone.
We really just.
Want to encourage everyone. I said, okay, so for the record, nothing will happen to anyone who refuses. And they said no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what And I said, that's exactly what you're saying.
I mean, why have a law with no consequences? That's kind of where we're heading with all this stuff, right, it sure is.
Why do would you be curfew if there is zero consequences?
I know, with my kids, if I don't punish.
Them for something, you know they're going to keep doing it over and over. I mean it happens with grown ups too, with criminals, if you don't punish them, they.
Just keep escalating their behavior, right.
Exactly, All right, let me ask you this question. The curfew is on the books. It says there's a curfew right right, it's a law, right, yes, so the police are bound to uphold the law. Now, let's just assume, for the sake of discussion, Police Police Chief Fiji is engaged and cared and she told her officers, you need to make this a priority. We're not going to engage in prosecutorial discs aggression and let people off, which police
can do all the time. It's like a police officer pulling you out for going eighty five and a fifty five and says, listen, you're going fast. Nobody was on the road, so I'm going to give you a warning and let you go. You broke the law, but under these circumstances, I'll let you go. Into this particular case, they're saying, there's a blanket we're not going to enforce it issue or decree out there because the law is
still on the books. So it seems to be the police department could do what it wants, could enforce the law that's on the books, and while nothing might become of it or happen to it, but they need to start cracking down at least to send a message out there that you're gonna get picked up, and you're gonna have to deal with the consequences, as little and small as they may be, at least it's going to be a headache and hassle for the kid and their family.
Right.
But if a police officer cites or arrests a child or a parent for this, then the police chief would not like that because the police chief told them not to do that.
Okay, that's where I was looking for. That's when I see that. That's why I kind of qualified them. I said, if she cared and she issued this edict or mandate, so apparently Fiji has already told her officers to ignore the curfew law.
Well, someone high up CPD has told them not to arrest to release the children if.
Their parents are unavailable.
But even if she Fiji decided she wanted to enforce it, then the city manager would not like that. And the city manager has the ability to pick a new police chief, right And even if the city manager wanted to do it, the city manager is hired by the.
Mayor, so he could pick a new city manager. So this all goes back to the mayor.
The mayor controls the city manager, who controls the police chief who controls the police department. So if you're not doing what the mayor wants, I mean, you're going to be replaced.
Well, wouldn't that be a great story for local news to report on Fiji wants to enforce the law that's on the books. Mayor afterpur Will wants to ignore and pretend like the law isn't there. City manager law wants to ignore the law and pretend like it's not there. We got a problem with youth out on the streets and gangs committing violent acts over the weekend and in the middle of the night. They could be picked up. There's a law in the books that would allow for that.
But look, yes, she tried police chief Fiji and they started enforcing it, and she lost her job because there's a law in the books that she was enforcing. That wouldn't make for good copy for the city manager or for the mayor, would it.
No? Exactly, Well they should start.
Doing their damn job then and tell those two to go to hell.
Right, But don't you think it's interesting.
I mean, we've kind of become a national.
Lacking stock, right, Yeah.
And I've seen all these memes and joke articles about our police departments.
And I find it interesting that Chief Fiji is the target of all of this. The battelond I know, that was funny.
It was hilarious, but we made the battle and d I mean it's.
I know, it's very exciting, but it's interesting that Fiji is the one being pushed forward to do all the press conferences. She's kind of the spokesperson for all of this instead of the city manager and the mayor. It's very smart of the mayor to the hide the chief as the target of all this. You don't see all these memes and jokes about the mayor because he's not
really responding to everything. By making the police the target, this is just another like, oh, look how horrible police are kind of narrative, right, instead of look how horrible the city administration or the mayor is.
Well, yeah, it's not fair.
The devil really is in the details. As you've explained all this, and I'll go back to the fact. They say it again, we've got a law in the books that's not being enforced at the directive of apparently the city manager and the mayor. That should be the focus of some of the nationwide reporting. Why aren't they enforcing
the curfew law. In the City of Cincinnati, things can get a lot better as far as crime is concerned, and they quit pointing to who's just doing what she let her lords and masters have told her to do.
I was that's interesting too, because last week I saw it looked like a city council meeting. I saw a clip where the mayor was there, and he brought Chief Fiji in and he said, there's been a lot of talk that the city has been telling you not to enforce laws. And he said, I just want to put this to rest. So and then he kind of crossed his arms and he looked down and he said, uh so.
He said, have I.
Or any of the elected officials up here ever instructed you to not enforce a law?
And Chief Fiji said, absolutely not. And my immediate reaction.
Was, of course not it was the city manager who told her that, because that's the chain of command. AFTAB tells it to the city manager. City manager tells it to her. So it's interesting because he said, there are all these rumors that the city is telling you this, But he said, let me narrow down the field of people for this question, just me and just the city council people up here, have any of us personally told you not to any force laws. And this happened when
he first took office. There was a big raid out in mount Airy Forest. They usually do a raid every year, I think, and they round up people for prostitution in mount Airy Forest. Yeah, and then once the list of people came out, all the people who were arrested, I think.
There was a prominent person on that list, and.
I think that was shut down pretty quickly, and the mayor, then, I'm assuming through the city manager, told the police, you.
Know, we're not going to do these raids anymore. You're not going to publish these lists. You're not going to do that.
So the police are being disabled by the mayor and the city manager because they're saying, don't enforce this, don't enforce that. But then all the wrath comes down on the police for not forcing anything.
Yeah.
Well, and you couple that with when they do actually engage in law enforcement and in force let's say, moving away from curfew, any really any other law. They go through the revolving door of the judicial system, which takes the morale out of the police officers, Like why do I bother? I got all this paperwork I've got to do, and nothing is going to happen to the perp that I just got done picking up. It's a pointless gesture. It's like they're just like just hell with a you know,
Officer so and so. I'm just going to ignore this one because nothing's going to happen. It's a waste of our time.
Right, Well, why would you step in to arrest someone who might hurt you, might sue you, all these things when it's all going to result in nothing. The person's going to get out on an O R bond and then even if they get convicted, they're going to be given probation.
Right.
I mean, this whole like Juris EMD situation has completely gotten out of control. I don't know if your listeners know the difference there, but like electric monitoring, that's when someone is on the box, they have the box on their ankle and it's hooked up to their home and they can't go within, they can't go more than a certain number of feet away from their home.
It's like house arrest.
Sometimes they can go out to work or something, and then juris is kind of the opposite. It's anchored on the victim, the victim's phone, and if alleged perpetrator goes near the victim's phone, it sets off an alarm, so the victim is notified.
But these just they aren't happening. Usually after court, the.
Jodge will say, okay, you get jurists, walk down deprobation a couple of blocks away and go get hooked up with the box, and then people just go home. And then, I mean, shouldn't we be walking people down there to get it if they're not doing it? Or I mean, that would be like saying I'm sentencing you to jail, just walk over to the jail and go serve your time, right, it.
Would do that.
It's an otters.
Yeah. I mean.
I have a family friend who was recently the victim of a felony and the court very violent felony. The court ordered an o R bond, which is shocking to me, but luckily at least they said juris if requested. So my friend the crime victim called and said, yes, I want juris. I want this person to have the box so I know if this person is near me. And then my friend called every day for about a week and a half and they kept saying, and he said,
you know, is it happening? What's going because he's scared? And they kept saying, I don't, We'll look into it. We'll have someone call you back every single day. I mean, what are crime victims supposed to do when they don't know what's going on.
That is a complete breakdown of the system right there. That's appalling. I'm not question how to respond to that. That seems like such an easy fix. Get an officer to walk the purp down and get the damn ankle monitor installed and don't let them go until it's installed.
Right.
And now there's been talk of moving some of our courts out to different places. I mean a lot of places that would be a lot cheaper for the taxpayers, which is good. But if you move one court away from the probation building, then like let's say one court goes out to Norwood or something, then you're telling people after court, Okay, go get your box. You gotta you know, take two buses downtown, or you gotta pay for parking.
I mean, who's going to do that.
Maybe we need a streetcar line hooking the court up with the probation department.
Oh, that's a great idea. We need.
We need like mobile E m D people who could just go to court and sit there and just you know, put the box on.
Well, no, but they need to hook it up at your house and everything. It's more than that.
Yeah, I understand, it's more complicated than the simplicity, boiled down version. But if they if again, if it's an honor system to go and hook the ankle monitor up, then obviously this is not going to happen in all cases. This is terrible. Well, but have you, Betsy sunnamon to
bring it to everybody's attention. Maybe we can start demanding some changes and get this information out there to hold our officials accountable to change the system so it actually works and provides the protection that we expect of it. Judge Betsy Son, thank you so much for bringing this to everybody's attention. I truly appreciate what you do. You're an excellent judge and you've served our community well and I appreciate that, and I know my listeners do also. Well.
Thanks for having me and let me tell everybody about it.
My pleasure. Judge Sunnyman, we'll look forward to having you back on again soon. It's eight twenty two, fifty five cares to the Dethok station. Judge Anotopolitano. Can the president imposed taxes? We'll talk about that stick around.
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