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Photo By Jymi Bolden
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Streets outside New Prospect Baptist Church were
lined with mourners and media during the funeral of
Timothy Thomas.
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Two weeks ago Mayor Charlie Luken was facing nothing but smooth sailing in his campaign to be the city's first strong mayor.. Then early April 7, one shot from a police officer's gun set off the powder keg that had been building under City Hall for years. The following days tested Luken's ability to verbally maneuver around hot issues and still satisfy black and white, rich and poor, East Side and West Side, labor and business. The fence Luken's political career depends on turned electric.
For months Luken has been saying Cincinnati -- like most of the United States -- has a serious race problem. But after that, he always throws up his hands, saying he doesn't really know what to do about it.
A savvy politician might have turned last week's riots into an opportunity to at least demonstrate a commitment to law and order.. But Luken no more has control of the police than does anyone else in city government. Timothy Thomas' funeral just ended when police again fired at unarmed people in Over-the-Rhine, this time hitting two girls, ages 7 and 11, and two adults, including a teacher, who sustained a cracked rib and two internal bruises that were treated in a Louisville hospital, according to television and Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
A police drive-by
Doreen Cudnik, executive director of Stonewall Cincinnati, was walking with a friend at the intersection of Liberty and Elm streets April 14. Cudnik had just left Thomas' funeral. Heading south on Elm, she mixed with a pretty relaxed crowd; black strangers were saying hello to her, she says.
Several people were standing in Elm Street just north of Liberty; one person held a sign reading, "Stop The Killing."
At about 4:10 p.m., four or five cruisers -- a mix of Cincinnati Police officers and state police -- stopped at Elm and Liberty, got out of their cars and aims their shotguns north, at the small crowd standing in Elm Street. Without apparent reason, the officers shot at least a dozen bean bag or rubber bullet rounds into the crowd, according to accounts by Cudnik and Heidi Bruins, a Stonewall board member also on the scene. Cudnik picked up four of the empty shells.
The crowd scattered. The officers turned south, facing black pedestrians on the other side of the street and said, "You better run!" Bruins said. Then the officers fired a few more shots, got in their cars, and left as quickly as they had arrived. It was all over in a minute or two, Cudnik says. Other eyewitnesses, such as C. U. Morris of Westwood, gave similar accounts, labeling the incident a "drive-by shooting." Two adults and two children were hit, according to police. Police are asking witnesses of the shooting to contact Lt. Jack Kraft of the Cincinnati Police Division's Internal Investigations Section at 513-564-1840.
"There wasn't nothing but three or four (protesters) out there," says Morris, who saw the event from less than a block away. "Now look what they've got."
At 4:18 p.m., the same officers passed by in their cars. A woman in the crowd -- now larger, and much angrier -- shouted, "There they are!" Someone else tossed a plastic bottle at the cruisers, which was quickly followed by a glass bottle. Both missed the police cars.
The officers circled the block, parked along the southeast corner of Elm and Liberty, and got out. A couple of them cocked their shotguns. This time, however, they were joined by at least 15 other state and city police cruisers along Liberty Street.
Cecil Thomas, director of the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission, stood in the intersection and angrily waved the officers away. Cudnik, almost in shock, wondered aloud if the shooting was some kind of attempt by the officers to incite the crowd.
A few minutes later, all the officers got back in their cars and left.
Luken's tender sentiments
The line to view Timothy Thomas' body stretched from New Prospect Baptist Church down the steps and across Elm Street, at least four people across. Slowly but steadily, a mixed but mostly black crowd climbed the stairs, past half-full pews of mourners to the silver casket. A solo Gospel singer filled the room.
Flowers enveloped Thomas' body, in a white-lined casket. A black Cincinnati Bengals baseball cap lay on his chest, and a rolled bandana lay flat across the casket's back edge.
Some barely looked. Others took in the sight, breathed and walked away teary-eyed. Some began crying even before they reached the casket.
Outside was a media horde, probably more reporters than have occupied a single Cincinnati corner in many years. NAACP representatives in yellow windbreakers directed traffic. Even Scientology members got in on the event, passing out booklets. Many people handed the booklets right back.
Thomas' mother, Angela Leisure, and other relatives reached the pew in front of the casket about 1 p.m. Leisure cried openly. A few minutes later, the four-part harmony of a gospel group filled the room.
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Photo By Jymi Bolden
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Members of the New Black Panther Party carry
Timothy Thomas' casket.
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Nathan Huffman, one of the singers, took a moment between song verses to talk to the crowd, which included a small white minority.
"There's something wrong when you can't get together without death," Huffman said. Some say cops need to be nicer, Huffman said. Some say parents, and others say kids, need to be nicer.
"Everybody needs to be nicer!" Huffman shouted, drawing cheers of approval.
The mourners included an all-star lineup of national black leaders, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and Luken.
More than a dozen members of the New Black Panther Party, wearing black paramilitary uniforms, stood along the left wall. Many members of the Nation of Islam, wearing blue uniforms, stood nearer the front.
Rev. Damon Lynch III, the church's pastor, roused the crowd from its seats with a short speech calling the audience to stand up for justice and for freedom.
"Stand up, black woman!" Lynch shouted. "Stand up, white woman! Stand up, white man! Because until the black man is free, America isn't free!"
Mayor Charlie Luken followed with quieter words.
"I repeat today my apology to you and to your family and your friends. What I ask is that today be a catalyst for a new Cincinnati," Luken said.
He seemed a little nervous, but still managed to deliver his usual response to the question of race relations -- he's not sure what to do.
"I express to you that our city will be better one day," Luken said, adding that he doesn't know how or when, but that he hoped that today would be the start.
Malik Zulu Shabazz, national spokesman for the New Black Panther Party, agreed something started -- but it's not what Luken had in mind. The violence wasn't a riot, he said.
"It was a righteous, divinely-ordained rebellion," Shabazz said.
Martin Luther King III said it's time for America to begin the process of reconciliation over its history of racism. But we can't make friends until there's an apology.
"One day America is going to have to apologize for her many sins," King said.
New Black Panthers raised their fists -- the party's salute -- and shouted, "Reparations!"
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Photo By Jon Hughes/photopresse.com
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Rev. Damon Lynch III speaks to members of the press
shortly before the funeral Saturday.
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NAACP President Kweisi Mfume promised to keep an eye on the investigation of Thomas' death.
"We will stand with you when the lights are out and the doors are closed and there's nobody around," Mfume said.
Nineteen years isn't a long time, but a life is judged by its impact on people, not its length, Mfume said.
"Although ordinary in his life, Timothy is extraordinary in his death," he said.
Lynch ended the speeches with a shot at local politicians. Thomas' body isn't even in the ground and the healing process just began, but people are "jockeying for position, trying to decide who's going to be the next great black leader of the city," Lynch said.
In a message to Taft, Lynch said he wants Ohio to be a state of compassion and mercy.
"We are asking for clemency for (death row inmate) Jay D. Scott," Lynch said.
Scott was scheduled to be executed April 17, after Taft refused to spare his life, despite questions about Scott's mental competence.
"We are not in Texas. We are in Ohio," Lynch said.
And not long after, a 7-year-old girl and a teacher found out just what it means to be in Ohio, at least in a neighborhood called Over-the-Rhine, when police opened fire for no apparent reason.
