Cincinnati Burning

By Nicholas Stix

April 18, 2001
Toogood Reports/A Different Drummer

Unless you depend on the New York Times for news, you are aware that last week, Cincinnati was besieged by a black-on-white race riot.

The Times dispatched propaganda officer Francis X. Clines to Cincinnati, where he reported on “demonstrators,” “vandalism,” and “alarmed whites.” Day after day, Clines quoted black Cincinnatians complaining about “racial profiling” and murderous white police, while managing to remain blissfully unaware of the riot swirling about him.

Roving mobs of black gang-bangers and non-aligned black thugs have been throwing bricks and concrete through the windshields of white motorists’ cars, dragging the drivers out their cars, and beating them within an inch of their lives with bricks and baseball bats. The same mobs, wearing bandannas around their faces, set businesses on fire. These were not “protesters.” This was not “vandalism.” The white motorists were not “alarmed.”

There is a special circle in Hell reserved for “reporters” like Francis X. Clines. The dumbest thing about his deceptions is their hopeless character. With all of today’s alternative news sources, did Clines and his editors delude themselves that they could get away with it? It’s no wonder, that Tom Brokaw dreams of the Feds censoring the Internet.

On the fifth day of the rioting, April 13, Francis X. Clines was still quoting black Cincinnatians’ justifications for the violence that supposedly wasn’t occurring: “‘This wouldn’t have happened if they had listened to us in those years back then,’ said Mr. [Charles] Wimms, a 39-year-old construction worker, recalling that police treatment of black Cincinnatians—the issue that drove the wave of protest and vandalism by clusters of angry blacks this week—was also a principal issue in the 1968 violence.

“‘So now we have a new generation of young black men running the streets again to stir things up for what is right,’ he sadly contended.

The ostensible cause of the riot was Cincinnati police officer Steven Roach‘s fatal shooting, on April 7, of 19-year-old Timothy Thomas. Roach is white; Thomas was black.

Steven Roach, a five-year veteran, had an exemplary record. Note, too, that while there is a long history of murderous, white policemen, they routinely had a second, “throwaway” weapon to place by a dead black man.

Roach said he thought he saw Thomas reach for a weapon, but produced no weapon.

Timothy Thomas had 14 outstanding warrants, albeit for piddling misdemeanors like failing to fasten his seat belt. And yet, when told to stop, he ran.

Stupidity kills. The wonder is, that Thomas hadn’t gotten himself killed sooner—he had a history of running from police.

Timothy Thomas’ mother, Angela Leisure, said of the other 14 black men who had died in confrontations with local police, “These people might have been insignificant in y’all’s life, but they were significant in our lives.”

Note that Mrs. Leisure was emphasizing the “significance” to black Cincinnatians, of murderers, armed robbers, and cop-killers.

Mrs. Leisure also said, “People keep asking me, why did my son run. If you are an African male, you will run.”

As I said, stupidity kills.

The media, especially the Cincinnati media, emphasized that “15 black men” had been killed by Cincinnati police in the past five-and-a-half years, claiming that five of those men had been “unarmed.” Let’s look at these victims of racial profiling.

Poor Courtney Mathis, was only 12 years old, when the “unarmed” child was shot and killed by Officer Kevin Crayon.

Did I mention that Courtney Mathis was a car thief who murdered Officer Crayon?

Mathis hit the gas, while Officer Crayon clung to the side of the car for dear life. He managed to shoot the boy, just seconds before young Mathis managed to murder him, when Crayon’s head smashed like a melon, upon impact with another car.

(That Officer Crayon, like some other Cincinnati officers wounded or murdered in recent years, was himself black, has been of little interest to black “community leaders” and civilian supporters of the rioting.)

And then there is poor, unarmed Jeffrey Irons. During a shoplifting beef, career criminal Irons grabbed for one cop’s gun, and wounded another officer, before police shot him to death.

“Unarmed” motorist Michael Carpenter, was shot to death by officers Brent McCurley and Michael Miller. When the officers stopped Carpenter for an expired license plate, he refused to get out of the car, dragged Miller, and sought to back into McCurley.

Or consider Darryl C. Price, who was having a psychotic episode in the middle of traffic, and fatally struck his head on a metal plate on the ground, as he wrestled with officers.

Harvey Price had just hacked his girlfriend’s daughter’s head halfway off with an ax. When he lunged at cops with a knife, they shot him dead.

Career armed robber Jermaine Lowe had just crashed his car while being chased by police, and was firing on three officers, when he met his end.

Daniel Williams had just flagged down, and shot a female officer four times with a .357 magnum, before she had the temerity to shoot and kill him.

Lorenzo Collins had just escaped from a hospital psycho ward, and threatened several officers with a brick, when two of the threatened officers shot him dead. I know: Being a black man in “Amerika” is enough to drive anyone insane.

Having just sought to rob a store, Randy Black hit a policeman in the arm with a chunk of concrete, and then tried to kill him with a “nail-studded board.” The cop thought otherwise of Black’s plans.

Having just robbed a bank, James King was understandably reticent about complying with police demands to hand over his weapon. He aimed at them; they fired.

An officer answering a 911 call reporting a man acting in a threatening manner, and talking of having a gun, found himself staring down the barrel of Carey Tompkins‘ drawn gun. He shot Tompkins four times.

Alfred Pope had just “allegedly pistol-whipped, robbed, and shot at a group of other men in an apartment hallway,” when he went down in a blaze of glory, at taxpayer expense.

About to be handcuffed, Roger Owensby ran away. Following a struggle, which included his being sprayed with “a chemical irritant,” Owensby died of “mechanical asphyxiation.”

And Adam Wheeler, wanted on three felony warrants — two for “aggravated armed robbery, and one for attempted abduction”—screamed at officers coming to arrest him, “You want a war? You got a war!” Wheeler got his.

(The above synopsis is based on information from a report by Cincinnati Post reporter Barry M. Horstman.)

I could see someone having doubts about the deaths of Roger Owensby and Michael Carpenter. Officers Brent McCurley and Michael Miller had apparently been following Carpenter around,* looking for something to bust him on. McCurley and Miller should have been fired, but weren’t. McCurley got off with a mere reprimand, and “more training.”

And regarding Owensby, suspicion may be justified when someone dies of asphyxiation, without having any drugs in his system.

And yet, the most striking thing about “the 15 black men,” is that almost every one of them attacked police officers with a gun, a car, or some other weapon, or else ran when police had told him to stop.

Anyone attacking a police officer with a weapon, or attempting to take an officer’s weapon, deserves to die, immediately. And while no one deserves to die simply for running when ordered by police to stop, such a fool is in fact putting at risk his own life, and those of passersby and officers alike.

Since the rioting began, the Cincinnati media has downplayed the murder of Officer Kevin Crayon, and the shooting of the female police officer, and only the British newspaper, The
Telegraph, has so much as mentioned the 1997 murders of officers Daniel Pope and Ron Jeter. I guess they weren’t significant in anyone’s life.


*I later discovered that Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Barry Horstman had misrepresented the justified police shooting of Michael Carpenter, by writing as if officers Brent McCurley and Michael Miller had been stalking Carpenter. Horstman fed into the black, racist myth according to which white police officers hunt for innocent, black men. In fact, McCurley and Miller had determined that Carpenter had outstanding warrants, and were attempting to arrest him when Carpenter, who had gotten into his car, tried to run down one officer, and drag the other one to his death.