Do you want to be in a man Stott flumshow on seven hundred w LW. As we cut through, it's on this Tuesday, getting ready for some Marty Gray action tonight. More on that later, we had let's see a shooting on a party of bus on Valentine's Day we in that left one dead one injured. Sunday we had about one forty am two people killed, two more injury to shooting at a club on Hamilton Avenue in Northside. Of course, overnight we have a body that was found one at
Lynn and Poplar, I believe. So they're kind of a steady drumbeat of homicides and the numbers are up a little bit year over year, which is causing concern. Joining the show this morning as the president of the Cincinnati Lodge Queency Lodge FOP at be Ken cober Ken.
Welcome, Hi you, Ben.
Heay, Good morning, Seth. Thanks for having me.
I'm doing well. Yeah.
First, I did want to give condolences because anytime an officer goes down to Metaware, it has cost for reflection and concerned. And we just had two officers shot outside Indianapolis yesterday, one fatal for that matter.
So condolences, appreciate it.
It's terrible. Actually, I was just an Indianapolis over the weekend and it's just terrible, terrible that things like this happen.
Yeah, it does. Well, we'll see.
I know that they caught the guy responsible or the subject anyway, so that's get him off the street anyway and behind bars if not worse. But so we had a reduction after the last for well the first two months of this year. I guess we're seeing your rise after reduction last year. So crime was down, but two high I said, mentioned the high profile shootings and the fatal last night at Popula Land. Crime numbers this year,
and it's against a very small sample. We're halfway through February, but a year of a year, we're up like forty percent. In considering the fact that it has been bloody cold ever since Christmas. That takes a lot of doing to get people out on the street shooting people or in this case clubs. Maybe is that a concern and is that a concern of the hot summer to come?
Sure, it absolutely is. I mean we did see a little bit of spike in a little bit warmer weather, which I'm sure it probably contributed to more people being out and of course had alcohol and guns at at a nightclub, and you know that's is a recipe for disaster. But yeah, it is very concerning that it's still this cold and you know, we're seeing you know, I mean, we're up to ten homicides already this year. That's certainly concerning.
Yeah, how do we compare it to other cities, like like, for example, Cleveland or maybe Columbus.
You know, it's ironic. I was reading an article and talked to the Columbus e FIP president who's a friend of mine, and Columbus so far this year, which is almost twice the size of Cincinnati and typically is much more violent, and they're actually they have a big reduction in homicides already. I mean they have six. We're at ten.
That is certainly a troubling trend. I'm not sure what to attribute it to, but it is certainly concerning that city half the size of Columbus is almost doubling them in homicides already this year.
Yeah, they're metro areas that were huge, Our birds are bigger, but the sides of the city itself is massive, and they've had ten. Yeah, and I look at it, go wow, what's causing this? Because you really have to work hard to get out in this cold weather. Generally the cold scarce street crime away naturally, But you have a fear once it starts to warm up and we get into the summer celebration season that we might see a very
bloody summer. It doesn't mean that that's not going to reverse course, but it certainly is something we should be looking at.
Well, yeah, you know, and it's I've talked about this at nauseum now and how the court system is not doing anything to protect the community. I just had an officer call me this past week and was just furious. He had a court case where a young man driving drunk hits and kills somebody aggravated the hicular homicide, literally kills somebody driving a car, and he ends up getting six months at River City in a three years of probation.
I mean literally a slap on the rift. You know, I spent a couple of years in our traffic unit back in the early two thousands where if you got to candiction for an aggravated vik kio homicide, you took somebody's life because you were drunk. You were high whatever else. You were looking at minimum five six years in prison.
Yeah, and now.
Six months, six months, and this person's going to be back running around on the streets. You know, when there are no consequences for your actions. This is exactly what we're seeing. I mean, people are just going to continue to shoot each other because they're not fearing any kind of consequence.
Well, no question, we saw the his name was Robert Shaw. He was charged with murder in the drive by shooting. They killed Justin Johnson when Thursday Night football was in town last year was the Bengals the imaginery right in front the in between tabern This guys, weren't an ankle monitor for charges considering a concealed weapon I legal gun possession, a gun under disability. He got a twenty thousand dollars bond,
paid ten percent of that in electronic monitoring. Back in June or a few you know, he's around shooting people with an ankle monitor on. We also recall the pivotal moment at Fountain Square where Shaquille Ferguson said it was dell self defense. The people he shot through the window of Citybird Chicken were actually armed and pointing a gun at him and that's know where people are around on Fountain Square. He was put on probation a month before
for a violent crime. Is this whole narrative with judges being two lax and also the enforcement and getting people off the streets who are in violation of breaking or wearing their ankle monitor outside the alerts go off. Have we got any better about that since the summer?
No? I think you look at Cincinnati wanted to be a sanctuary city. Apparently the Hamilton County Courthouse he's become a sanctuary for criminals. There's just no accountability. And as long as we continue to see that no accountability, you know, if there's no consequences, people are going to go out and do whatever they want. They're going to commit violent crime knowing that they're going to be right back out, and that's exactly what we're seeing.
Why do you think judges aren't listening to this outcraft from the public.
I think some of these judges they ran on this, they ran on bail reform, they ran on making sure that you know, there's this social justice, all of these things, so they're not being shy about it. And it's what the County's voting for you know, we had some fantastic judges that have recently been you know, kicked out of office in exchange for judges who have said, no, we want lower no bail, or we're doing cashlest bail. We're
doing all these things. So it's exactly what they're saying they want to do, and for whatever reason, the people in the county are going for this, and it's just it's making this county much more dangerous and it's going to continue to.
Well, I mean, you know, the county can cover continues to vote and look look at it, you know, despite the problems with Terry Sigi. And we'll get into that in just a second. Ball these things and at the end of the day, we just elected all the people that had a hand on this.
To begin with.
It's not a concern for the resident Cincinnati. Why should it be concerned for you?
Then one might ask, well, and that's that's the hard part is because you know, every police officer, like myself swore took an oath to protect the communities we serve. And it's extremely frustrating when you have officers that are going out doing great work getting guns off the street, you know, getting violent as thunders off the street.
Only to be let out.
Yeah, you know, I'm quite honestly, I am surprised that the doors in the courthouse haven't come off the tracks because the door is revolving so quickly. Yeah, it's just it's it's ridiculous and it's frustrating to see that it's going on, and it makes cops feel helpless a lot of times.
Yeah.
Ken Cober, president of the Quincity Lodge FOP, on the show this morning on seven hundred WLW and talking about the shooting last night. We have a steady state of shootings here on North Side, and you look at that one in particular, Ken, that's troubling because there's a business owner. I was watching the news last night, I think it was five and this guy owns an appliance place and it's in front of his building shot up. He said, yeah, it's not the first time he goes. I'm thinking about
moving off the main strip out of the way. You know, here's a community like Norriside. Generally there's some crime there, but it's not like the areas that typically we see when when it's started, when bullets start flying around there and people going hey, listen, I'm out. That should be a wake up call to those leading our city.
You would think you would think the elected leaders would look at this and that businesses are frustrated, citizens are frustrated, the police are frustrated. Maybe we should change our ideology. But then again, you continue to get re elected. So apparently, you know the people that are speaking out about crime, the people that are speaking out against the violence, or maybe the minority of their voters.
I don't know.
I don't get it.
Yeah, I don't either. I mean I get it.
We have to look at you know, we're locking people up from marijuana possession and stuff like that, and clearly that was that was wrongheaded. And now we're talking about expunging records and banning the box. I have no problem with that. But when someone picks up the gun and commission of a crime of a violent felony, and then they get released on their own recognizance to go out and do it again, they completely thumb their nose at the system. I mean, you're past the point of reform.
I would think at that case, if you didn't learn your lesson the first time, why are we giving you a second chance. I think that's fair. I think most people in Cincinnati's voters look at that and go, yeah,
that seems about right. If you're going to be a predator with a weapon and you don't get the message the first time, and you do it literally while you're well you got you walked out of course, someone just we're on the right cown walked out of court basically and reviolated after promising they'd get a job and be on community controlling all these wonderful things they promised.
A judge, I'm sorry when you break it. I don't think there should be a third chance.
No, I completely agree, I absolutely agree with you. And unfortunately that is not the ideology of many of these judges in Hamilton County. And there is going to be a direct correlation between a bloody summer and you know, these criminals not being held accountable. We're going to see a time and time again. I mean you look at you know, just just from the city aspect, you know, they just re elected all the city council, you know,
the mayor. Yeah, they has said look, we're this is we're all for cashlest batil, we're all for our bonds, and they vote them. So it's clearly this is what they want. Yeah, so this is what they're gonna get.
This is the effect of that too.
And it's certainly not everyone, but it's enough towards a steady drum beat. And the crime numbers are going back up again a very very small sample, and you're talking in different like seven last year and ten this year, but still it's not the right trajectory and it's not a good look for these folks. I'll also ask too that you know, if if all of this stuff about getting rid of Terry Thiji was driven by the rise and crime, the problem if the numbers are going back
up again, is this all on Terry Thigi? And not only that the fact of the matters. I think the Inquirer just did a piece on this the other day, going, what what is good? The contract's going to expire with the local law firm? What' taft? In literally just a week or so that said, Hey, we got to get this thing wrapped up. And there's still nothing coming out about She's still the chief technically and Henny is still the interim chief. That doesn't look like it's changed anytime soon.
I meant, how much longer do you have to investigate to find out why you fired her in the first place.
It's funny.
Trying blame in the chief of police for crime is like blaming McDonald's for somebody being obese. It's it's nonsense. You know, there's only so many things a police chief can do. There's only so much that the police can do. There. We're one hundred and forty and fifty officers short camp everywhere.
At the same time, you know, at some point there's going to have to be a culture shift within the city of Cincinnati to say, you know what, we're we're going to find a way to resolve our differences instead of picking up a gun because.
We're upset with somebody.
And until that changes, you know, we're we're going to see kind of the same thing and then until judges decide you know what, if you're carrying a gun and you're committing a violent crime, you're going to go to prison and you're going to go there for a long time. Until those things change and it's actually publicized. Yeah, I'd love to see the headlines of you know, the latest homicide suspect, you know is going to spend the next thirty years in prison for taking somebody's life. Now, that
might actually get somebody's attention. But until then, all of these headlines of you know, four people shot here, two people shot here, it's almost become just like background noise. I think people are so desensitized to you, oh, they're like heah, they wake up and see there's oh, big surprise, there's another shooting in Cincinnati, and somehow it's become acceptable. And until that changes, until that mindset changes of look, we actually value human life and we're not going to
tolerate this nonsense. And it starts with elected officials, it starts with these judges. Until those things change, you're going to continue to see the same thing over and over.
Well, relative to the Chief Biji investigation, that she's still hanging and twisting in the wind because she is technically not fired, well, not fired at all, because we've got to find an investigation as to why we fired in the first place. I think does that hamstring things for you in a sense that you know we've got well, we've got to do more research to find out why we fired in the first place. That's not a good I don't think that sits well. And maybe they just
hope we forget about it. But the other element of this is Adam Henny, who through all in accounts that I here is a good guy. He just how much juice could he have if he's still the interim chief.
You're absolutely correct, you know, it's doing a disservice to him. It's doing a disservice to all the other men and women that wear this uniform that we're all just kind of in limbo right now. It's like, okay, well, you know, he's the interim chief, so there's some changes that he can make, but any any change of any real, real, uh substance isn't going to happen until we have a permanent chief, and I understand that, but we're just going
to keep on dragging this along. You know, who knows what's going to happen at the end of this month, and then you know, where do we go from there? Are they gonna are they going to bring her back or are they going to say, say, well, you know, Adams now the chief who knows well? But this this just keeps on dragging.
It's also not unlike the uh you know what happened over the summer too, with the big fight downtown after the music festival and like that case just simply no one's talking about.
It's just simply evaporated, like we're waiting for, you know, the testament.
It came out from the prosecutor off I was like, well, it wasn't the racial beatdown that we thought it was. Actually the white guy was a victim. And ever since then, the people who have called for you know, the heads of white people, essentially we've got to prosecute this guy, like everybody else turns out there now no one's talking about. It's just still like simply I've never seen a case that big go away and literally in the corners of
hushed conversations around the city, that's all you hear. But no one's talking about that either. It's I wouldn't call it a conspiracy or cover up, because you can't do that. But I think the THEIJI case in this are remarkably similar is that it doesn't fit the narrative and kind of made it go away.
Well sure, you know, they put they put the cart before the horse, and then all of a sudden, now they're trying to backtrack and figure ot, okay, what do we do now? We put ourselves in a bad, bad predicament and what do we do now?
Yeah, yeah, Also with the cameras, right, we had to for the first shooting at the Laura Playground a couple of years ago, the cry was, hey, we're gonna put cameras all over. Well we didn't do that, and another eleven year old died in New Year's Day and still there was no you know, it's confusing, it's contradictory. We're getting you know, double speak. And I don't know are the cameras going up? But I thought I saw they were, but I don't know.
Yeah, it's ironically enough, Chief kind of put together a group of police officers that this isn't really their job to be doing these things, but most of them have a really substantial IT background and know how to do these that they've actually taken from their assignments, put them in a group together and have been going out and installing cameras. This has typically not been the job of sworn officers, but they're making it work, and I know a lot of it has been done very quickly.
They've worked a lot.
Of hours to try to get all these cameras functioning and to take the new cameras that they have and get them up yeah, but while that's being done, then their normal job is suffering just because you know, they can't obviously can't be two places at the same time. So I mean, they're just trying to make it work with what the resources that they have, which it is certainly admirable that they're getting it done.
All right, we'll leave it there.
Wad a shooting on Valentine's Day and a party bus, one dead, one wounded. Sunday morning, one forty North Side, gun play breaks out for in a club, bullets flying over the street. Some of the buildings themselves and storefronts are hit with you can just see the broken glass and the remains of the shooting itself. To what two people killed, two injured there. And then last night they found a body of a female dumped at Lynn and
Poplar Street. So the bloody cold weather, it doesn't really make a lot of sense, but we're starting to see a spike in these violent crimes and murders despite the fact we've had an extremely cold strutch normally that doesn't happen.
It makes it.
I think it's fair to ask, well, crap, if it's this cold and the weather's is bad and there's still We're still seeing a rate of homicides increasing over the first two months of the year. That begs the question, well, what about when it gets warmer? Are we in for a bloody summer? We hope not, and hopefully we'll find a way through this. Ken Coober, president of the Queen City Lodge FOP, thanks again for jumping on this morning.
Brother appreciates you be well, sure appreciate take care. We got to get a news update in the very latest with the weather situation.
What's warming up now?
It feels great outside, but we got a lot of fog again this morning, and of course the passing of Jesse Jackson making news today dead at the age of eighty four. Scotts Loan show. This is seven hundred w