Curfew Keeps Lid on Cincinnati Protests

Police said an overnight curfew helped them keep order when black protesters set fires and threw rocks and bottles after a judge cleared a white police officer in the fatal shooting of a black man.

Mayor Charlie Luken declared a state of emergency Wednesday night and assumed control of the police and fire departments. He was considering whether to extend the citywide curfew past Thursday night.

“That curfew was a great tool for us,” police spokesman Lt. Kurt Byrd said Thursday.

Luken was criticized after the April riots, which were sparked by the shooting, for waiting too long to impose a curfew. On Wednesday, he authorized the curfew after police reported seeing crowds gathering and some youths putting on masks.

Police went to 12-hour shifts and canceled days off.

“I think the response by the city was better than in April,” Luken said Thursday. “I think we learned things.”

The mayor also said he had asked clergy to urge people to stay home Thursday night, saying protests “sometimes have unintended consequences that are not peaceful.”

The disturbances occurred in Over-the-Rhine, the same predominantly black Cincinnati neighborhood that bore the brunt of the three-day riot triggered when Officer Stephen Roach shot Timothy Thomas, 19, on April 7 as he fled police who sought him on 14 warrants.

A judge Wednesday acquitted Roach, 27, of negligent homicide and obstructing official business. About 12 hours later, scattered vandalism began and continued into early Thursday.

Car windows were broken Wednesday night about a block from the site of a vigil for Thomas.

One news photographer was struck on the foot by a thrown brick. Another photographer, cut by glass from a broken bottle, was treated at a hospital.

A car was set on fire, and there were at least 30 fire department runs to extinguish trash can fires, Byrd said. Twelve adults were arrested on charges of curfew violations, disorderly conduct or drug offenses, and two juveniles were charged with curfew violations, he said.

Police said the disturbances weren’t nearly as bad as in April, when stores were burned and looted and some white residents were pulled from their vehicles and attacked. About 75 adults and 40 juveniles were convicted of riot-related charges.

Black activists said they thought Roach should have been convicted and jailed for what they perceived as an unprovoked shooting.

Prosecutor Michael Allen and City Councilman Phil Heimlich said they deplored the violence. They said Roach received a fair trial and the verdict must be accepted.

“Just because you don’t get the verdict that you want doesn’t mean that justice wasn’t done,” Allen said. “There are some in this community who believe that you should get the verdict you want when you want it.”

Some activists called for black residents to channel their anger into electing new city leaders in November, when all nine City Council members are up for reelection. Voters also will elect a mayor for the first time in 76 years. The mayor will have a four-year term and the power to veto council legislation.

“You’ve got to express dissatisfaction at the polls,” said Fanon Rucker, a black lawyer and former assistant city prosecutor.