Do you want to be an American Scott Floon Show on seven hundred WLW. So we got some breaking news to share with you this morning about crime in Cincinnati. Robert Shaw has now been charged in the murder with that drive by shooting to kill the thirty four old man by the name of Justin Johnson right after Thursday night football. This is on Sycamore in front of the in Between Tavern. Happened about two am, so people are still downtown celebrating the Big Bengals when Shaw was wearing
an ankle monitor at the time. Does the story sound familiar? Sure? And the reason why I was under a house arrest so to speak, was carried concealed weapon, illegal gun possession and here he is being held on that, being about to go and trial on that, and now he's out there doing it again. So initially he was released on a twenty thousand dollars bond with the electronic monitoring that was back in June. Also, the suspect in the Fountain
Square shooting last week has turned himself in. Twenty four year old Shaquille Ferguson said it's self defense because the people that he shot at through the window of Citty Bird Chicken on Fountain Square were actually armed themselves and
pointing a gun at him. The only problem with that argument from Clyde Bennett is that mister Ferguson was already on probation in July for a violent crime, which means he's under disability and shouldn't have had the gun that he shot the window out and at the people to the city Bird. So we're back to this question. Is our probation and monitoring system completely broken and beyond repair?
On that is the honorable Betsy Sunderman, She's a judge in Hamlin County, joining the show to discuss here on seven hundred WLW.
How are you good morning? I'm great, how are you?
I'm doing final though you hear these stories, I'd love to not be talking about violent crime in Cincinnati, but you know, we have shoes dropping and now we know the backgrounds of the individuals and jackets on Robert Shaw and Shaquille Ferguson. You have two people yet again that should not be armed by law, and yet there they are.
Yeah, exactly, And if there's, if there are any issues with probation monitoring right now, it is interesting for your listeners to know who is in charge of the probation officers. It's the judges. The judges hire the probation officers and make sure they're doing their jobs. So if we're having issues with probation monitoring, I mean, I haven't heard this
issue before in the past. And it's interesting. Now we have a lot of Democrat judges who are in charge of the probation department and that seems to be the big change, and now we're not very happy with probation monitoring. So, for example, about a month ago, the Democrat majority of judges and Common Police Criminal Court decided to get rid of some of these, well all of the probation substations.
So there used to be these substations in the most violent neighborhood and people who are on probation could go meet with those probation officers there, and the probation officers could set up shop there and they could visit people in their homes. But now the Democrat judges have gotten rid of those and they said, well, it's more efficient
because now our probation officers can all be downtown. Well that's true, maybe it's more efficient as far as you know, they don't have to drive places, but they're not able to monitor people.
Well, they're not in the community. So now they got it a far further to monitor the people instead of being in the neighborhood. It'd be kind of like just having one big police station district one as opposed to the multi different districts in and around Cincinnati. For cops, you put them where the people in the crimes are exactly, and if they're.
Visiting people in their homes, then people are picking up more violations when the probation officers are seeing things in their home. So of course the stats are going to show a year from now that there are fewer probation violations. But that's because the monitor monitoring is going to be subpar, and as we see the monitoring get worse and worse,
we're going to people out there offending. For example. I mean, I really can't speak specifically to a case, but if there's a case where someone, for example, is on the ankle monitor but has privileges for something, sometimes it's hard to monitor those privileges. So like let's say I was on an ankle monitor and I had privileges to go to work. Well, that's easy because I work at one location and I work from the same time I start and the same time I end every day. But a
lot of people don't have jobs like that. A lot of people, you know, maybe they work construction, or they work at a hospital, or they work odd hours. And how do you monitor someone when they always say, well, I was on my way to a construction job.
Or in the cases this is Betsy Sunderman ferguson the Fountain Square shoot at Teddy Bird. This young man has a two cases pending for aggravated assault, both with a weapon specification. There he shot someone two days prior, allegedly a northside before he shot the window out in Fountain Square and shout at the people there, And yet he was on probation from the other one saying, hey, listen, as long as you're out looking for a job, it's fine.
I don't know if that's a good idea. Turn your application at City Bird and then turn around and shoot their window out, albeit not to shoot at the bird's window, shoot the people in the bird. But still, I'm pretty sure, you know, if I'm doing the hiring that kind of behaviors frowned upon.
Yeah, I guess it depends what kind of job they're trying to book, but it's unlikely that that would meet the job description. Right. But by having these rules that seem really tough, but then not enforcing them properly, this is the way that the politicians can say we're combating crime but really doing nothing. For example, like the mayor and his juvenile curfew. Whenever a juvenile either shoot someone or get shot, he says, we're gonna tighten up this curfew.
But then if you look at the actual rules of the juvenile curfew, if a child is out, if someone under eighteen is out and they say that they're on their way to work or on their way home from work, you can't make them go home, or you can't violate them for the curfew. If they say that they are exercising their First Amendment rights, which could be the freedom of speech, of assembly, they could freedom of the press, church.
They're on their way to church, Bessie when they shot that person exactly.
And then even if the kid says, you know, I'm not I have no exception that fits, then the police all they can do is say, you know, we'd really like you to go home, And if the kid says no, then they'd say well, we'd really like you to go to this, uh, this rec center, and if the kid says no, they can't, they can't do anything. So it's great that the mayor's on TV saying we're tightening up this curfew. If if you're there and you're doing anything bad, we're going to rush you.
But it's just not playing out like that, all right, Betsy Sunderman, Judge Sunderman, this yere on the show and we're talking about probation and monitoring systems. Are they broken beyond repair? Robert Shaw, that was the man who's now been charged the drive by shooting. They killed thirty fear old Justin Johnson after Thursday night football right right near the in between tavern on Thursday night Friday morning. He
was already out on a lot. He was wearing the ankle monitor at the time he shot the individual in the car. Justin Johnson form what I understand. People I know knew this guy and said, yeah, he's a professional, you know, seemed to be an upstanding guy who I don't know why he and Robert Shaw got into a beef and what was over. We don't know that. But the background is not Justin Johnson is not a street criminal.
He's a professional, or was a professional before he was murdered in the Shaquille Ferguson shooting at City Bird Chicken. He was armed again, had priors, who's out on probation for a violent crime, and he shot the window out and trying to shoot at the people inside City Bird. His attorney, Clyd Bennett cleim self defense. We'll see about that. I do I'm not quite sure how that works within
the law. If you're prohibited from having a weapon because you're on probation and you shoot at someone, I'm not quite sure that that is going to it's it's not
like ofsetting penalties in the NFL. And then you play it over in that regard to Betsy sentiment though, And I think it's interesting in pointing out, because we've talked about the problem in its progressivism in Cincinnati, that that that's fueling this it's because we want to hands off no bail policy and we want to be kindler and gentlemen with people who are suspected at crimes because their life is already difficult, and well, it just gives the
sociopaths out there more license to do stuff like this. I will point out, however, in both those cases in Sean Ferguson, those are both conservative Republican judges that ordered them on monitoring, and that would be Judge dink Locker and Judge Ruleman. Does that change the math a little bit on.
This, well, I'll tell you those are two of the judges who give the biggest bombs. So without being able to talk to I can't call them and ask them about the case and then talk about it on the videos, right right, But I would trust that those judges would set appropriate bonds. There's a trifecta that kind of effects every time someone's upset about someone being on parole or probation and being out there and committing crimes. There's a
trifecta that affects all this. There's the police, there's the probation department, and the judges. So the police are controlled by, of course the police chief, who is controlled by the city manager, who is ultimately controlled by the mayor. So the police department is controlled by the mayor. And then we have probation, which I already told you is controlled
by the judges, the now liberal Democrat judges. And then we have the judges themselves, which are now a majority Democrat liberal judges, so that basically the two groups that are controlling all this is the mayor, the city manager, the city administration, and the liberal judges. So if we're seeing a big change, those are the big changes. Of course, we've had a Democrat mayor for probably fifty years, right, but the way the mayor is affecting the police department
is different than ever before. And then all having a majority liberal, progressive Democrat judges is new for us in Hamilton County.
Look look look at it. Look at how the mayor's office impacted the brawl, and that he was demanding that the white guy be charged because he's a white guy. We've got to balance things out racially. Apparently, if yourest a personal caller, you got aggressive white guy, even though he was the victim. Clearly this whole thing, and no one wanted to write that citation and unfortunately made a captain down at the Central Business dictor to it who wasn't even on the scene. To show you how politically
motivated those charges were. Just to appease the vocal contingent of folks in the community who were screaming about restorative justice, which is which is a farce. But relative to Robert Shaw, I don't know. This may be a tough question you neither answer to you can I understand you have a canon of ethics you have to abide by. You can't criticize other judges. But in the shawcase, this is a drive by from Thursday night football in from the in
between that was under Judge Dinkelocker. The guy Robert Shaw was on a twenty thousand dollars bond with electronic monitoring and this was from a case back in June. His jacket is this nineteen ninety eight six months in prison for coke possession, two thousand and three six months for concealed weapon, illegal guns, receiving Spoling Property RSP. And then twenty eleven and then again in twenty fifteen he did
prison time for allegal gun possession. He got twenty thousand dollars bond, an electronic monitoring out and murdered someone while he was wearing the ankle monitor. What would you prescribe what would you prescribe as a punishment for Robert Shaw? If we're in front of you, let's say, and he
was already out on bond for another shooting. How many more times do you give someone a chance to get out on bond even though they have priors involving a weapon, because it tells me they're probably just going to do something with a gun.
Again, Yeah, I mean, what do you? I mean, what do you do with someone who clearly is never going to put down a gun? Right? I mean, this guy, it sounds like you've been in prison quite a few times for having guns. He just keeps he just keeps picking up a gun, right. I mean, again, I can't speak to this exact case, but I do trust judge take a locker and if he set that bond, I mean, I don't know, I don't know. I can't really speak to a specific case.
Well what were you? What would you've done? Now, again, you have the hindsight that this guy's going to murder someone over apparently it's just a beef. It doesn't look like they knew each other at this point. We'll find out. But what And you can't look in the crystal ball and say, well, he's going to go out and murder someone. You don't know that, because there are probably countless people are in the situation that going out and do it.
But we're talking about stopping this from happening in the first place. Should we just say, hey, listen, you alrighty had a gun. Speck you go right to You're going to hold you and you're not going to get out, and you're not gonna be able to walk around. And you decide to do something stupid with a gun and you shouldn't have a gun. You're going to sit in jail until your trial.
Yeah, well, I mean I would want to look at his pre trial services sheet. So every single person who's arrested and put into the jail and has an arraignment the next morning in front of a judge, a municipal judge and pre trial services interviews the person and sees if they're a flight risk, sees how much money they could afford for a bond. They ask them a million different questions about drugs and guns and family members and community ties and do they have a job, that kind
of stuff. And the judge is able to look at that sheet. The prosecutor is not able to look at that sheet. I know that because I used to work in that courtroom. One thing that we could do is we could give everyone access to that information that might be very helpful. I'm sure some of the new prosecutors have different strategies than when I was a prosecutor there because now they have a different boss. So I don't know. I mean, giving everyone maximum information and maybe giving the
media more information. I know the media doesn't see those pre trial services sheets. I'm not saying those should be turned over to the media, but usually that docket is very rapid, and the media kind of leaves confused, like, well, why did one person get a low bond and one person get a high bond? Right, So maybe making some of that more accessible.
Why isn't I shared with the prosecutor if anyone else.
Yeah, I don't know. It's a good question. I don't know. I should know that, but then it should be shared with the defense attorney. If you can't share something just with a prosecutor and not the defense attorneys discovery, I don't know. Maybe there's no time. I mean it's a very quick docket. I mean, it's probably not as quick as it used to be because we not as many people are arrested because there aren't that many people in our jail at any more.
But what I remember wasn't long ago under Sheriff Simon LEAs, and I know he's revered this community. I think there's something he did was way overreaching. I mean, like you know, but he was tough on crime for sure. And I remember having, you know, discussions about we need a bigger jail, we need more jail space because we can't house all
the people. You don't hear that conversation anymore, and that was, like, you know, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, it's simply because we're not holding people anymore.
Right, Twenty years ago, sy Lease used to meet with all the judges and say, listen, we are bursting at the themes. I'm going to have to create some new work details and things so we can let the least violent people out earlier. And the judges would respond, you know, do what you need to do. We're going to do what we need to do. You know, we're not going to change our sentences. But you know, if you don't have room, you got to do what you need to do.
I can't imagine that conversation is happening now where the sheriff is saying, we don't have any room here, right. But even if we did try to arrest another two hundred people to fill up the jail. We don't have sheriff's deputies, we don't have enough corrections officers. Police officers have told me when they arrest juveniles now and they bring them to juvenile jail at twenty twenty, we call it twenty twenty. Auburn Avenue that most often twenty twenty
just says we're not going to keep them. We just don't have enough employees. We just can't keep them. Yeah, Well, I don't know. Is it a policy issue? Is it a staffing issue. Is it people are vilifying police correction officers and then no one wants to do it, and then that's fulfill the plan to be understaffed and to not be able to lock people up. I don't know.
If you look at the climate and CPD right now, we've got a huge number of officers retiring, even at early ages because they can't stand all the politics and the bs and what the mayor's office and how much control they have and how their hands are tied in a lot of cases, and they go to a suburban office or trying to do a latter recruiting, And I understand it's difficult because people go, well, the money's good, but you know what, I on the job in Cincinnati.
I'd rather stay where I am. It's not attractive to them because the climate created by the political ecosystem in Hamlin County, but specifically in the city of Cincinnati. She is a judge, Betsy Senderman, who's running for office. The cycle will know in a couple of weeks if she wins.
But it's it's a tough job. But we've got to reform this system because ankle monitor the grant and there are probably thousands and thousands of people out there that abide by the terms of the deal they made with the judge and are trying to do the right thing. But how do we segregate the most violent people? And I'd say, if you have a gun specification history of priors with guns like this Robert schaugu I did, then I don't understand why we're giving you house arrest essentially
because chances are you're going to break it. I think, if it's a gun speck, we already have laws in the books. Let's enforce federal law that if you're prohibited because of a felony prior felony from owning a fire arm, possessing a firearm. Then you go to jail right away and there is no release, there is no ankle monitoring going on, because you're a menace to society. Betsy Sunderban, I always appreciate the time and the insight. Thanks again. You have a wonderful day.
Judge Clownix, I like it.
No, I'm not going back to school. You ain't gonna get me there. Hell no, I'm not taking out more student loans. I'm I'm on the wrong side of fifty and I just finished paying mine off. Betsy, Oh the best, take care, see you later.
All right.
We got a news update coming in momentarily and we'll chop it up next about what you just shared here. Surprise surprise, guys out on ankle monitors and house arrest and they're out shooting people.
This is what this is.
This is the government we deserve because we elected them seven hundred w Well them