Do you want to be an a Manican idiot? Plenty on seven hundred WLW. It's often said that if a police officer wants to pull you over and they're looking for a reason why, they'll find some. They'll find tall light out, something blinking, touch the fog line, touch center line, signal, to early signal too, like something on those like that, if they want to they're looking to pull you over, the pull you over? Did this just happen to Terry
Thiji in a much bigger sense? Of course? Cincinnati releasing a bombshell report on the police chief in the police chief at Limbo may have not been fired yet and after six months, roughly six months, thirty two witnesses and now a verdict that could end your career. This is what the investigation found. This is what an attorney called a shameful hatchet job. The information is out and some of the highlights we'll get into with Ken Kober, fopre president on the show on seven hundred WLW. Safe to
say Ken that there's not much love lost here. I know the rank and found not big fans of Terry Thiji, but everyone hates their boss in America pretty much, don't.
They Yeah, for the most part, that's true. And your chiefs are no exception. You have half the rank and file will love the chief and the other half won't. Let's just waste society is yeah.
Yeah, So this investigation, I'm pretty thorough with Frost Brown, Todd Gibbons did and talked to thirty two. They interviewed thirty to forty two. A couple people obviously did not want to go on a record. A lot of people are nervous about this. The report concludes, Terry Thiji has not been an effective leader of the department. Again, she has not fired at this time. It's an ongoing personal matter. Whatever the hell that means. Six months later, that she
was too old school, pretty authoritarian and rigid. Her communication style like transparency, distrust. There's a strong culture of retaliation inside a CPD, and that if she allegedly blocked city Hall, and that would include the city manager and the assistant city manager from communicating with her command staff directly, I had to go through her, and this of course started to unravel during the violent summer that we just had
and it became an untenable situation. Oddly enough, coincide, coinciding with the election, and so that's the political context, that's the facts of the matter. Here, let's jump into the bones of this thing. The report says that she rejected the Mayor's office of double overtime pay, citing a potential collective bargaining violation. Basically, she said that the city wanted double time for officers. We're going to work the hell
out of you. She said, Well, I want my men and women to work the hell out of and they need some time off and they should only get time in a half as well. Did you ever consult you with the FOP about that?
And was she right? No? What we did talk about was the forced overtime that city Hall wanted to put upon people, specifically to walk in areas of Vine Street and Main Street and over the Rhine that quite honestly, just weren't having problems. When she talks about the data, the data did not suggest in those blocks that they should be patrolling forced to work overtime. And that's she said, I'm gonna I'm gonna go to the line. These cops are overworked. I'm not going to force them to work more.
Well, the cops were you're rank and file, though, were they leaning more towards Hey, I get extra money, I get double time, or going hey, thank god, I can't work these many hours I had to manage. It was fairly divided. But what was the mindset generally speaking of the rank and file.
Then for the most part, people are just burnt out and they're like, listen, we're working enough as it is. You have you have a pretty small faction of the department that consistently works overtime. You know, with this new generation of cops, a lot of them prefer, you know, work life balance, and they would rather be home instead of working. And then there's there's some that are like, yeh, I'll work, I'll work all the time. But you can't
continue to go from that same pool of people. And then now you're going to tell them now not only hey, thank you for volunteering for all these hours, but now we're going to order you to work more. And that was something that a lot of officers were upset about.
The report describes a strong culture of retaliation inside the force. Are your members telling you the same thing? And how long has it been going on?
Well, listen, I've been here twenty six years. There's been people that have complained about retaliation for the last twenty six years I've been here, and you talked to retire guys that came before me that have always complained about the same thing. You know, retaliation is something that certainly has to be proven, not just you know, suspected of. But I would say that under her leadership it was no different than any other leadership.
Yeah, And I mean there's cases you go back that are still being said, the Pettist case and others where it's a case of maybe discrimination, but that seems to pop up often with labor relations inside police forces Cincinnati notwithstanding.
No, You're absolutely right. I mean, there's there's always been this element of people being unsatisfied for one reason or another. I mean, there's people that have that passed up for preferred assignments that believe that they were wrong for one reason or another. And it's it's something that unfortunately is just part of police culture. And I think trying to use that as an example of why, you know, she was an effective leader is just very misguided.
Witness has told investigators who are nervous to be interviewed they feared backlash, career consequences, et cetera. Is that a common fear. How widespread is that with your membership.
I think a lot of people just want to come to work and do their job. And in this particular case, there were some that just refused to interview, and a couple of them that I talked to you said, listen, I'm just a po I'm here to do a job. I don't want to get involved in city hall politics. I don't I don't have anything to say. And I think it was less about necessarily retaliation from the police department as it was just I don't want to be involved in this because the reality is what's going to
happen now. These names are going to be released, and once they're released, you know, there's going to be depositions, there's going to be personnel jackets requested, all of these things, and it's just something that cops just don't want to deal with it, Ken Cober.
The report says morale has improved under interim chief Henny.
Is that a fact? I think if you ask the cops that we're dealing with thousands of people in the streets fighting on Thursday, they would probably tell you that morale is still a challenge. You know, I think there there are certainly things that Chief Henny has done that has has helped to make things more positive. But you have to understand that he's also still under our collective barneting agreement, so there's only so much that City Hall could do to him if he does something they don't like.
Whereas you know, Chief Biji and other permanent chiefs before are constantly under the thumb of City Hall and you're making those decisions. So I mean, I think it's like anything else. If you ask after the department, if they were satisfied the Chief Henny's here, I think they're gonna say yeah. I think if you ask certain people they would be yeah. Maybe maybe this isn't the greatest idea,
but that's normal. That is a completely normal scenario for anybody that's in charge of the police department.
Ken Cober is a president of the FOP Queen City Lodge. Joining the Scottsland Show here seven hundred WW on the Fiji report coming out the former chief, the Chief in Limbo, if you will, it took almost six months, Kenkober, and it was only nine pages, and that strikes me as I've seen reports like this where it just goes on and on on it. It's like a it's like like the Bible. Right, this is only nine pages. Did you see anything in there that was news to you that surprised you or shocked you?
Yeah, there were some things that were in there, And whether they're true or not, I don't know, because obviously I wasn't a party to it. But problems with command staff officers and the chief, the stuff about the city manager and the mayor and the assistant city manager, the chief blocking things. I certainly questioned, if they knew that she was purposely obstructing communication, why didn't they do something about it when it happened. Why are we waiting till
now months later? And the interesting part about this entire investigation that none of these interviews were recorded. They were purposely not recorded. They were told you are not allowed to record these interviews, and we're not going to record them. We're simply going to take notes that, in my opinion, lacks a whole lot of transparency. I mean, you look at these officers. Good to Internal Investigation Section. Interviews are recorded,
they go to the citizens complain authority, they're recorded. My god, we put body cameras on cops. We have cameras in cars. Everything these officers do are recorded, but now they want them to participate in this investigation involving city hall, and all of a sudden, no, no, no, we're not going to record anything that doesn't pass the smell testomy.
Is that more about the retaliation fear that that very fewer people I guess would testify if that were the case, and said, hey, listen, I'll talk to you, but you write it down. I don't want my voice recorded. Then that can get leaked out. And now we have audio evidence.
No, this was up the request of Frost Brown and talk. Actually it wasn't even a request. It was a demand that you not recorded and that they're not going to record it. And here's the thing. All of this is going to come out eventually anyway, because everybody's going to be deposed. I mean, assuming that the chief fire or yo, she ends up getting fired, she sues the city, all of these people that interviewed are going to be subject
to deposition. So it's all going to come out anyway. Now, everything in this report was witnesses said, Witnesses said, witnesses said, and there's really going to be no proof of what they said other than notes that someone supposedly.
Took uh Fiji herself. Obviously, it said the thing's a lightning rod for her as well, and all the trouble gets thrown at her feet because it's an easy excuse. You know, wind blows off lids off a garbage cans, Well, it's her fault. We can blame it. It happened on her watch, even though she had no hand in that. That's part of this thing. Her attorney, the very capable Stephen m called us Sing a hatchet job. Do you agree with that?
We knew it was going to be from the beginning. You put somebody on administrative lea two weeks before an election, and then it takes you six months to figure out whether somebody was effective or not, you know, as somebody who is throughout their career, if they if she had all these problems to city Hall, why wasn't anything documented before this? It just doesn't make any sense. We we
all know why this occurred. You know, this was this was a political blunder yet again by the city and it's well, we'll see how this ends up in court, but I would suspect that she's probably going to do pretty well for herself.
Well, I would say, if it's a blunder, it worked out pretty well for him because of aftab On down All got reelected.
Well, I think that was that was a foregone conclusion. If if they would have kept her, I think the election would have been the exact same way. But I think someone over at City Hall got nervous and thought that maybe this would help re elections. But the reality is, I don't think it had any impact one way or another.
You think our expectations because we were pretty so much seed eidehim on most things. Ken cober Uh President the FOP that that we're out of touch with what the citizens want. Because if all this is going on and they just re elect the same people they had before that, that and and by pretty wide margins too, that tells me this is what the residents want. Are we are you? Are you fighting? Are you trying to push a boulder up hill?
Well, I mean, it's funny that this is what the citizens want. Yet when they just did this survey and they talked about how safety has to be prioritized, they're afraid to be in their own neighborhood, But yet they've they've voted in the exact same people. So clearly this is what they want, and at this point I think we need to just sit back and go. If this
is what they want, this is what they get. You know, the old adage of you get you get the government that you deserve and that you elect is absolutely true. And clearly they're okay with the things are going on in this city. So you know, at this point, you give the voters what they want.
Ken Kober, you'r rank and file. They get scrutinized all the time, your your pos and and op the fin Did it surprise you or is it pretty commonplace that all of these bad things came about Fiji is the reason why they suspended her and ultimate problem of fire and cut her a big check. It's performance based. She hadn't had a review, a performance review in seven years, and yet they threw this out there like she's supposed to know. She'd never been corrected on any of this. Is that common?
Well, listen, here's the always been the problem with the city. And everybody wants to blame the FOP for defending its members. You know, when they get suspended, when they get terminated, and all of a sudden these suspensions go away. People get reinstated for their jobs and they're terminated. And it's all because the city historically has done a terrible job documenting things with people that they say are problems, and this is no different. You have somebody that has spent
thirty five years here, Absolutely nothing has been documented. There's never been anything saying, hey, you need to do a better job, not a performance evaluation. How can you improve on your performance if you're not told the things that you need to improve upon.
And I think that also gets back to the witness. They don't want a paper trail, they don't want evidence people testifying. It's you know, if if there's no permanent record of this, whether it's a performance evaluation or you could always move the line right, you can, you could take that information and tweak it and use it to see how you fit. It's manipulative, is what it is.
Absolutely. And that's where I said the lack of transparency in this investigation, it's just it's it's staggering. Now, whether those were the rules of engagement for Frost Brown Todd, which very well I would suspect would be the case, because as far as I know, they're a very very reputable law firm. But then again, I also understand that you know, you're hired by a client and they say, hey, this is how you want they this is how we want you to do this, these your marching orders, this
is what you do. Completely understand that it's just the entire thing just lacks transparency, and that that I think is ultimately where I think the city is going to be most vulnerable when you get into any kind of litigation.
The reason why lawyers are called counselors is they counsel They can't actually force you to do something You're to hit their consultants basically, So if the marching orders are, hey, we don't want any recordings of witnesses, and this is why we want the investigation to go, that's the context in which your employer, in this case, the City of Cincinnati, sets forth to the law firm. The report also says that Terry Thigi block City Hall from communicating directly with
the assistant chiefs and the command staff. Did you at the FOP Ken cob ever raised concerns over that chain of command break down.
I'd never heard that. You know, Like I said, I'm in a little bit different position just because yeah, I'm an FOP leader, but I'm not in the command staff. I mean, I'm sure there's certain things that had been kept for me on purpose, and I get it. That's kind of the relationship between union leaders and you know, leaders from the police departments, so that that wouldn't I mean, as far as me being left out, it doesn't surprise
a bit. I mean, I fully expected. But if that's something that city Hall knew was going on, then they never addressed it. That's on there.
Multiple witnesses described the nepotism favoritism in that as a huge problem inside CPD. Then even pre Day's Terry Fija, I think that said that report. Is that a fair characterization. I think it's gone on forever.
I know the example that was used was her nephew, who's the lieutenant our department. He was the only one. They made him the legal liaison after he went to law school, passed the bar. He was the only one at the time that I'm aware of that had a law degree. It made complete sense to put him in that position. So I guess that's what they're going to try to use and say that this was favoritism and nepotism.
But you know, there's been accusations of that for as long as I've been there, certainly long before I was there, and I'm sure it's going to be at least accused of long after I'm gone.
In the meantime, we have a community activist in Iris Rawley who is not a big fan of what you guys do for a living, and the opposite is true whose son works for her, and yet there's no cris of nepotism there.
M kind of interesting, isn't it, ken Kober?
What do you see? What do you see shaken out from this?
All? Right?
So they got to you can find anything on anybody, right, I mean if you if Frost they hired Fraud, if the Vatican hired Frost, Brown Todd Gibbons to investigate the Pope, you think he was dirty as hell, because you're there going to find dirt on you. I mentioned the pretext of a stop for example, you want to pull a subject over, you know you can find something that they're doing driving in a car in order to initiate that stop. That the same is true here. What do you think
comes of all this? They just wind up settling and we're talking millions and millions of dollars here for Chief Thiji.
Yeah, I mean it's hard to say. I mean, I don't think there's a scenario where she comes back, and I certainly I don't blame her. I don't know how you would be able to come back and work in this kind of environment, knowing that that the things that have been done to you over the last six months. I think it's likely the city is going to end up terminating or be followed by a lawsuit in three years from now, you know, we'll be sitting here talking about what the results of this lawsuit are.
Yeah, And then the people who cut the check or council people go well, I wasn't here.
You know.
The favorite thing is well, I was elected, then, I was on council, then I wasn't mayor then, and you know you have got cover and so it goes. But overall, the what effect does this have on the rank and file officers you represent, the FOP, Cancobra And what about Chief Henny. I mean, he's got to be looking over his shoulder too.
I would think, well, yeah, I think that whatever decision they make, right, wrong or indifferent, it needs to be made the men and women of this police department. They deserve to know who's going to be in charge of this police department going into summer. We know it's going to be a long, hot summer. We know that things like Opening Day are likely going to occur again. We're going to be seeing protests almost every weekend as the weather warms up. They have a right to know who's
going to be in charge. Just like Chief Henny, he should be knowing whether or not he's going to be here, he's not going to be here. Those are decisions that need to be made immediate. Like I said, what regardless of what those decisions are, it's owed to these men and women of who's going to be in charge of this place.
I will say in final final point here, they're throwing the crime problem with Terry Thigi. She mishandled everything, and we had the violence, the brawl downtown, we had Fountain Square and others. But ever since she has been quote unquote terminated for the last six months, it's not like we've not had We've seen crime go down and violent crime as a result, whether it's three takeovers, mass shootings and the like. Pretty much this is what we wind
up get. The Opening Day stampede, if you'll call it that. And this shows me it's not a problem of the chief, it's the culture and the climate. I know for a fact that you know, the city didn't want to like the idea that Fiji was attacking judges and saying they got to do a better job, or when she's out there being Chief Mema talking about how kids need to be held responsible by their parents. City didn't want any part of that, which is shocking because that's where it starts.
Without a doubt, and as long as we have this lack of accountability, this is going to continue. It doesn't matter who you make the chief, it doesn't matter any of this, It doesn't matter who's in leadership. Until the court system decides to hold people accountable for their actions, we're going to see this and it's likely going to get worse before it gets better.
He's Ken Cober, President of the Queen City Lodge of the FOP. Ken, thanks for jumping in this morning. I appreciate you. I know you're busy as hell and probably extremely tired about talking about this topic. This won't be the last time, brother, appreciate.
It all good. Thanks Thanks for there you go.
Yeah, let me get an update and we're running late, but good stuff there with ken Well Pivot. Julie Bouke is here a career sure if it's Julie on the job from an HR and workplace type of environment, and she's an expert in that. What lessons you learn from what happened to Terry Fiji that you can applay in your workplace, whether what comes down to performance reviews for example, Chat with her next about it right after news on seven hundred WW