Rodney King 2??
 

Monday, December 1, 2003 Posted: 5:47 PM EST (2247 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/1...in.custody.ap/

A videotape shows police officers struggling with Nathaniel Jones.


CINCINNATI, Ohio (AP) -- A 350-pound black man died after being struck repeatedly by police wielding metal nightsticks, and the mayor said Monday a videotape showed that the officers were defending themselves.

The cause of death was under investigation.

Black activists say the death Sunday of Nathaniel Jones, 41, was another example of brutality involving Cincinnati police.

The fatal shooting of an unarmed 19-year-old black man by a white police officer in April 2001 prompted four days of rioting in the city.

The disturbances resulted in dozens of injuries, more than 800 arrests and widespread property damage.

"How many of our people have to die before the city decides to do something about it?" said Nathaniel Livingston Jr. of the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati.

The Rev. Daymond Lynch, a leader of the Black United Front, said he was reserving judgment until more was known about the case.

But, Lynch said, "if police officers act improperly, we expect them to be held accountable."

The officers who were at the scene -- five whites and one black -- were placed on administrative leave, which is policy while investigators examine any police encounter that results in a death.

The confrontation was videotaped by a camera on a police cruiser. After seeing the video, Mayor Charlie Luken rejected activists' demand that he force police Chief Thomas Streicher Jr. to resign.

"What I saw was a ... man violently attacking a police officer in a manner that put the lives of police officers at risk," Luken said.

"While the investigations will continue, there is nothing on those tapes to suggest that the police did anything wrong."

Luken said he agreed with the initial police assessment that the officers who struggled with Jones defended themselves as they were trained to do when attacked.

An employee at a White Castle fast-food restaurant called 911 early Sunday to report that a man had passed out on the grass outside. Emergency personnel arrived and reported that the man was awake and "becoming a nuisance," according to police radio transmissions.

The first two officers to arrive, Baron Osterman and James Pike, were shown on the video striking Jones after he was warned to stay back.

Jones then lunged at one of the two white officers and knocked him down. As they struggled to handcuff him, the officers kept yelling, "Put your hands behind your back."

They called for an ambulance when Jones appeared to be in distress. He died within minutes of arriving at University Hospital, Assistant Chief Richard Janke said. The reason for Jones' behavior was not known, Janke said.


The cause of Jones' death was under investigation.
The treatment of the officers involved in the incident by department leaders upset Roger Webster, president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Cincinnati.

"The officers were treated as criminals," he told a reporter. "They were read their rights. In that video, what did these officers do wrong?"

Black activist groups staged an economic boycott of Cincinnati after the 2001 shooting of Timothy Thomas, who was wanted on prior charges of fleeing police when he ran from officers.

Officer Stephen Roach shot him in a dark alley and was later cleared at trial of criminal charges.

Civil rights leaders blamed what they called years of abuse by the police department for the anger in the black community. Thomas was the 15th black suspect killed by police since 1995.

A federal investigation of that shooting, requested by the city, resulted in Cincinnati's April 2002 agreement to tighten use of force policies and to improve handling of citizen complaints against the police.

The agreement, signed by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, specifies when and how police officers should use force, when and how they can engage in foot pursuits, and how they deal with those who are mentally ill.

Last February, a white officer chased and fatally shot a black man who was spotted running from a store that had been broken into, police said.

The police, Hamilton County prosecutor and the Citizen Complaint Authority review panel concluded that the shooting was justified because the suspect was beating the officer with his nightstick.
************************************************** *

What do you all think?? Has anyone seen the video?? This is going to get real ugly real fast :( :mad:

Whoa!

I haven't seen the videotape, and honestly, I don't know that I would want to. Things like that get me upset. *SMH*

Its pretty graphic. Its all over the news..so if you watch tonight..you're bound to see it..

Although the guy was on PCP...he shouldn't have died. if I'm an officer...and its between my life and the guy I'm trying to detain...i gotta choose me.

This is my hometown so this situation has been personal to me for a long time. This sort of thing has been going on for years and it's past time for federal intervention into this department. A friend's cousin is head of the Sentinals (Cincy's black officers union); trust me there are issues w/ that department.

That said, this dude this week caused some of this himself. Toxicology reports said cocaine and PCP were in his system; that plays a part that's his fault. But why does it take six, fully weaponed, attired officers to put down an out-of-shape, apparently sickly dude? Shouldn't their hand-to-hand training allow them to shut him down before having him die. I mean, if he pulls a gun and you have to shoot him, ok. But a beatdown by 6? I had the same feeling watching the Rodney King tape. Why it take 20 to beat somebody down?

And none of this excuses the shooting an unarmed man (Tim Thomas/ April 2001) in the back as he was fleeing arrest from a bench warrant for failing to appear for traffic violations. That is what touched off the 2001 Riots. People, even those messing up their own lives with anti-social behavior, will only take so much isht before they respond.

I pray that your hometown makes it through this situation riot-less. The situation in 2001 was definitely wrong..but I think it was a little different.

Its just hard for me to defend this brother because he's high on Coke and PCP. 350 pounds with an enlarged heart and yelling "White Boy" "Redneck" and "My mamma taught me this." The police officers were yelling, "Get Back" " Get down" etc.. I am definitely NOT saying the guy should have died....but how do you defend him when he's lunging at and hitting the cops?? I mean we all have to be accountable for our actions don't we??

I guess I"m kinda split on this issue. It didn't look to me like the cops were trying to just brutalize this guy for no reason. The cops know they have a camera in the police cruiser...and this guy wasn't hit in the head one time..But he definitely should NOT have died :( Its just so sad..

Either way...this incident just isn't going to be good for race relations in Ohio...or anywhere for that matter...

I agree with you LoveSpell, maybe they could've used a stungun or something, I don't know. I still don't want to see the video tho. *smh*

I saw the tape, and I am torn also.

The man attacked the cops first. He was HUGE. They had to subdue him.

But the beating that followed was just....savage. The force they used seems so excessive. Once the man is on the ground, don't you stop beating him?

He died because of that beating. I understand that he started the confrontation, but the police were wrong.

I can't understand how SIX (although that's a very good number ;)) cops could not detain him. Had the guy just stayed down...I would say flat out that the cops were wrong...but he kept getting up...and he kept getting up!

It's funny because you know the cops knew this was going to be ugly because when the camera in their police cruiser cut off....they turned it back on...I guess they knew how people would perceive this incident...

The fact that this guy died just seems to overshadow whether the cops were just doing their job...or were acting excessive...

...no I'm not defending the deceased at all; he could/should have complied better (I saw the tape), nor am I attacking the PD in this incident. I'm just saying this particular police department with its history really hasn't earned the benefit of the doubt, IMO, in these types of situations.

The "investigation" will tell all, I hope. :mad:

That's a good point. They have very little credibility when it comes to police brutality. That department is notorious.

I saw the tape, and I personally think they took it to another level! I mean dang, they didn't have to beat that man that badly. Now he was wrong for attacking them, and he was a big dude, but the way they attacked him was terrible.

I agree. I didn't see the part of the tape where he attacked the officers first, only the part where he is on the ground with his hands up in a motion trying to protect himself from the blows. My question is....don't police carry pepper spray?!?! Why didn't they just spray him and then aprehend him? That would have made more sense than to beat the poor man to death.

A 350lb man high on Cocaine and PCP is not going to be subdued with pepper spray. In fact, in fight they appear to gain strength and lash out indiscriminately. When that much weight and strength is being thrown around it takes much more force to subdue them.

Believe me, I am not trying to defend the po po, especially there in Cinti, but very honestly if I was in their shoes I would call for all the back upI could get to restain a person that size. Plus, do we don't know yet if he would have died if he had not had an enlarged heart?

I guess I believe if that had been a 350lb redneck high on Coke and PCP and behaving the same way, the same amount of force would have been used. So what concerns me most is that we, Black folx, are using the race card more and more, i.e., the police brutality occured because the suspect/victim was Black. Not that it isn't warranted in many cases, but when we use it in lieu of the fact that the behavior by a suspect/victim is inappropriate in the first place, we lessen the credibility of the real cases of racism.

My Soror..My Soror...did you or did you not hit the nail on the head?!?!? I was SO offended when a black woman (I'm not sure if she's the head of an organization or a member of the man's family) said the we must end the "LYNCHING" of black men in America!! :confused: How on earth could she compare a black man being LYNCHED to this brother who's high, beliggerent, and making racist comments?? It is so true that the race card seems to be played whenever there are black and white people involved..and we don't get our way. It's almost expected everytime something like this happens....

And I sincerely believe that a 350 pound white guy would have been handled the same way. Just as not all white/black people are racist or evil ...not all police (whether in Ohio or NYC) are bad.

I'm anxious to see what the coroner's report will say.

No Spin ZOne??
 

I thought the same thing before I saw the whole video...its amazing what SPIN the media can put on things. They aren't playing the man's comments to the officers...or the several times where he kept getting up...

And we don't know yet that he was beat to death..the coroner's results have not been released yet

I see what both of you are saying and I agree with you. On all of it. The playing of the race card has seriously hurt our credibility. If a black person says "race" nowadays, it's because they are too sensitive or trying to "persecute" the white man :eyeroll: This is because we choose to support people like OJ and Michael Jackson, not to mention debacles like the Tawanna Brawley incident.

But all that said, I find it almost impossible to give this police department the benefit of the doubt. They ARE targeting black men out there.

You definitely hit the nail on the head. No person high on cocaine and PCP can be dealt with delicately, less a person who weighs almost 400 pounds. As for cause of death, it can be anything. We'll just have to wait for the coroner's final disposition.

I suppose what everyone is failing to recognize is the minute and 37 seconds that the tape wasn't rolling. According to news reports, the dash camera only works while the cops blue lights are flashing. Supposedly, one of the cops used a remote control to activate the camera from outside of the vehicle. Interestingly, the tape begins with the black man attacking the cops. No one really knows what happened during that minute and 37 seconds leading up to that attack. I honestly feel that those cops used excessive force, clearly. There comes a time when it's just human nature to fight back. Clearly, he was on something(drugs) so clearly he's going to fight back not recognizing that he's fighting cops perhaps. Regardless, those cops were out of line.

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses. The brotha was wrong PERIOD. He shouldn't have died...but he was wrong. If its 6 cops...keep your butt down on the ground! GEEZ!

...Not to be indelicate here, but as any male who has ever played sports knows (myself as an example) if you take a shot "south of the border" you are going to slow down real real fast, at least for a minute, no matter what is in your system.

That's the sum total of my argument. Stun gun the guy, deliver a strike to his crotch, anything to stop him long enough to cuff him, and not have to possibly kill him. I have to wonder if these 6 couldn't get it done together, how would any of them do in another situation 1-on-1??

first, it was stated that Nathaniel Jones had "traces" of PCP and coke in his system. to me, that doesn't say that he was high. the tape just shows me a man who was hyped up on adrenaline, given the situation. we'll see what the final coroners report. secondly, watching the tape gave me a real sense of deja vu. so many unarmed Black men have met the same fate here, Death By Police. the police need to be released from the stranglehold of the FOP, the police union, in order to make real changes. for starters, better community policing, diversity training, end the "inbreeding" when it comes to promoting officers to higher positions...
as a native, it saddens me to see my city in this light. i just wish other residents thought like me and would make some real changes...:( :mad:

WenD08,

If you run for City Council, you will get my absentee ballot vote!! What side of town you from? I grew up in Avondale and later College Hill/Finneytown.

I hear ya Sister Greek. You know your city better than all of us.

But here in Minneapolis, the charges of police brutality are also flying rampant by a group of so-called Black leaders who blame everything on racism. We recently had a young man (a known drug dealer) arrested in a drug raid. He claimed that two police (he named them) sexually assaulted him in the house they raided with a toliet plunger. Sound familiar? It happened about a month ago, a few days after the Law and Order rerun about that very thing that did happen in NY.

When the news first showed him, he was walking from the jail with no problem and even slightly jogging. But the next day and following days when he was shown at various community press conferences and rallies he walked bent over (supposedly because of his injuries.) At one he even fainted. He wasn't charged and so he was released. Last week the police made another drug raid on a different house. Lo and behold, guess who was there? And this time he claimed it was a different police officer who had assasulted him the last time. BTW, it also has come out that he is a police informer which he vehemently denies.

But this is what I mean about us crying wolf. Because the so-called community leaders have taken this and run with it as a perfect case of racial profiling and police brutality.

Well...
 

This is all I have to say, they did the best they could in their situation.

I pray for the family and hope they can get through this, but why do I want to support someone with a past record, a drug user etc. and say the police did him wrong and should have let him beat them up. I'm sorry this man was in the wrong and lost his life over it.

Re: Well...
 

i concur UpPinkies.. what do you think is going to happen when you take multiple swings at a cop??

I agree with Love Spell and ladygreek. I'm puzzled each time something like this happens. We know that police tend to be more harsh on blacks, especially black males. Yet, I hear story after story of black males running away, fighting back, or being belligerent when they are confronted by cops. Most know the consequences.

Cocaine has a numbing effect on the body, so if a person is high on Cocaine, their body is probably pretty much numb and therefore won't necessarily go down if hit "below the border".

That man played a big role in his own death.

I agree with you. The constant jabbing of nightsticks in that man's stomach, sides, and ribs was unnecessary. In response to what a lot of people have already written: Yes, we as black people pull the race card a lot but with good reason. Now, true, this man did have traces of drugs in his system but they were minute amounts. Secondly, the police were trying to arrest this man...for what? Passing out? :rolleyes: I would have tried to resist arrest too! The man was probably incoherent and the police should have been smart enough to figure that out. The fire department and police was called because it was thought that the man needed medical attention. According to what I found out today in one of my classes, the "sick" individual needs to stick around for an ambulance or something like that but it's the duty of the police to make sure he doesn't leave the scene. BUT the individual does have a right to refuse medical treatment. So they tried to arrest this man, I guess to make sure he didn't leave before he was offered medical attention?? And even when they KNEW he was sick (b/c he was passed out), they continued to give him orders and try to arrest him and then beat him knowing that he might not be comprehending what they were telling him.
Bottom line, the police were in the wrong! There are a certain "type" of police out there who have these preconceived view of the black man. This same type of policeman gets easily "threatened" and scared when confronted with a belligerent African American citizen. Consequently, incidents like this occur because, again, they felt "threatened". These type of police officers have absolutely NO BUSINESS trying to restore order in a society where 80% of citizens are minorities.

Is it just me or is it every time they have some case of police brutality against a black person, the suspect is always on cocaine and PCP? Does anyone ever question what the police are on when they do this?

Wow...
 

Having lived in Cinci during the riots and recruited by the Cinci Police Department...

I could have easily been on the force right now during this event, and Cinci does have a huge problem with police brutality. My remarks?

Mr Nathaniel was high. But the fact remains that he has seen how brutal the Cincinnati police department can be. I don't know if it was the drugs that caused him to fight, but it was a fatal choice.
The police: They also should have been more careful in trying to subdue a fighting 350 pound man. Where I work, we have to subdue them all the time, and we don't have to beat them. Although they are not high, it can be done with only 2-3 people. So there are better ways of doing their job. I pray they find it.

My mom thinks that The Cinci police have undercover kkk officers...hmm?
I lived in the avondale/reading area...Xavier U baby...

Has anyone tried to look at this from the police officers perspective? YES maybe it should not have taken 6 of them to detain him...but he was coming at them, swinging at them, saying racial slurs, would not stay down, was grabbing the night stick etc.. Were they supposed to let the suspect beat them up?? I'm sorry if you swing on a police officer...you got whats coming to you...black, white, red, whatever. Yea the guy shouldn't have died...but he should ahve thought about his health before he decided to take a swing at a cop, take drugs with an enlarged heart and indulge in Burgers from White Castle at 350+pounds.

What would you have done in the situation if a suspect would not stay down and was coming at you? The officers DID pepper spray him...they continuously said "put your hands behind your back"Why do we always jump to the defense of someone who's in the wrong in the first place??

I just don't get it :confused: :mad:

This Just In . . .
 

Coroner: Ohio Man's Death Is a Homicide
5 minutes ago Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!



CINCINNATI - A struggle with police was the primary cause of a 350-pound black man's death, the coroner said Wednesday.


Hamilton County Coroner Carl Parrott said Nathaniel Jones, 41, suffered from an enlarged heart, obesity and had intoxicating levels of cocaine, PCP and methanol in his blood.


Parrott said the death will be ruled a homicide, but added that such a ruling "should not be interpreted as implying inappropriate behavior or the use of excessive force by police."

Tony BO6,

i've lived in Madisonville, Silverton, Forest Park, Woodlawn, and Springdale, twice. i thank you for your support if i move intown and run:D
Ladygreek, it's people like that that don't help solve the very real problem of police brutality.
i do believe that Mr. Jones was in the wrong AND the CPD were in the wrong as well. Tasers? Stun guns? perhaps they should've been used and could've helped in that situation. i'm not a police officer but i've read they are used by other police departments.
i'm looking at this from a "numbers" perspective. i would like to know how many unarmed belligerent/drunken/high white males have died while in police custody in this city (i pay attention to the news and i believe it's a low number). in this city, far too many unarmed Black males have suffered Death By Police. unless i see unbiased stats that show a similar number of dead white men as Black men due to the same circumstances, i will not bend on this.
a question: why do people always feel that the police are right each and every time and w/every situation? i read enough newspapers and watch enough news stories to know that's not true.

an aside: i'm not anti-police. i am pro- good police. i had a great experience riding w/a Cinti Police officer for a day and would do it again in a heartbeat.

...I guess I'm most puzzled that this has never happened to a white man at the hands of the Cincy PD. strange, ain't it?

Do the reports now say it was only a minute amount? Because what I read today, his behavior from passing out to dancing, singing, and jogging around the restaurant and the parking lot doesn't indicate a sick man, but an intoxicated man. Sounds like more than a minute amount. :confused:

Personally, I don't always believe that the police are right each and every time with every situation, just as I don't believe that Black folx are merely victims of racial profiling each and every time with every situation.

I never denied that racial profiling was a problem. I just don't think that black people are right all the time when it comes to stuff like this, just like the police aren't always right-like ladygreek said above.

I stand corrected. I heard there were small amounts when the incident first took place but the coroner's report proves that wrong. :( Aaw, now I'm really sad because even though he had no business being high like that, he probably didn't know what was happening to him when the police tried to arrest him before beating him up.

I haven't seen this tape, nor do I have any desire to see it. But, from the information that I have read and seen on the news, I have formulated my own opinion on the matter. They were both wrong: the police and the deceased.

I have looked at things from the police officers point of view. If a man is resisting arrest, I understand the officers' desire to use force to subdue him. But, I do think that police departments need to thoroughly train officers in ways to subdue a suspect while using the least amount of force possible. Too many officers pull the pistol or night stick and ask questions later. We need more thinkers on the police force and less reactors.

Next, this man should have just laid down on the ground and not resisted. I don't know if his reasons for fighting back were chemically related or just based on frustration. Either way, it would have been best for him to just lay down. But, I have to reject the argument that since black men know that the police are prone to brutality, they should just accept whatever the cops are dishing out. Just because they do it doesn't make it right.

Just like on GC, opinion varies...
 

Talk radio's response predictable
------------------------------------------
Cincinnati Post staff report
12-5-03

While the Nathaniel Jones confrontation video makes the rounds on national TV, Cincinnati talk radio has responded to the controversial death in a predictable, almost deja vu way, not adding much to the debate. But it sure does make some noise.

"Every black man in Cincinnati should feel those blows. Every black man in America should feel them," said a caller Thursday to WDBZ-AM (1230), the station aimed at the African-American community.

It's very different over at WLW, where Bill Cunningham reigns as the conservative afternoon talk host. "I see a miscreant, a fellow high on PCP and embalming fluid turning into a violent offender beating on police," said Cunningham.

The local talk radio world is indeed a tale of two cities even though we all live in the same one. "Just as the city is divided by race, the talk stations are divided by race," said Lincoln Ware, operations manager and 10 a.m.-1 p.m. host at "The Buzz."

"About 75 percent of our callers are pro-police," said Mike McConnell, WLW's 9 a.m. -- noon host. Ware agreed that about the same number of his callers are opposed to the way the police reacted in the Jones case.

It is the nature of talk radio to polarize. And when stories with racial overtones become news, you can expect the area's two main talk outlets -- WLW and WDBZ _ -- will fall into the party line.

It's not even the talk hosts that encourage the hyper-rhetoric. Callers of a particular political persuasion know where to turn and where to sound off in support of their views.

Both McConnell and Ware agree the Jones video immediately became a sort of Rorschach test for both sides of the issue with talk radio tracking the results. "We've basically had people calling who look at the video and see two completely different things," said McConnell. "A good percentage of the audience sees those who are anti-cop as pig-headed. Those who are backing Jones or think it's brutality see everybody else as some sort of Nazis. Those are the two divisions and there's no one who falls in the middle."

Of course, there are those in the middle. They just don't call talk radio. People who see gray areas or are undecided soak it all in before they make a decision. But that kind of thinking is usually not what talk radio is about.

For example, Ware, who may be a more conservative talk host on a station where most black callers are definitely riled up about the current issue, often tries to get callers to see the gray areas. "Is it racism or just a failure for these cops to be able to communicate with black people?" he asked one caller this week. It was a searching question that asked volumes, trying to get people to make intellectual distinctions and in turn ask more questions.

Ware said he is a fence sitter on the Jones case, constantly telling his audience to wait for the facts to come in, but he acknowledges it's not popular to come off as "pro-police" on The Buzz.

"I try to put out a true fact and it looks like I'm siding with police and many of my callers don't like that," Ware said. "It's frustrating because some people just don't want to hear the true facts."

Still Ware, with a 25-plus year career on Cincinnati radio, remains sensitive to the black community, understanding sometimes there is just a need to sound off. "They really need to vent. It may have been something that happened to them in the past dealing with the police and this just brings it out. Here's their chance to get back. They want to call a radio station and say, 'Here's what they did to me, and they are wrong on this one, too.'"

In some ways, the national coverage of the issue has probably not helped the local debate. The video showing police officers repeatedly striking Jones with their nightsticks has literally been everywhere from Court TV to the cable news channels.

Local TV stations could be said to be showing more restraint and responsibility with the use of the video and editing than the national media. For example, one quick CNN edit showed police beating Jones but did not include his aggressiveness at police.

There is no secret as to why the national networks have jumped on the story.
"There's a video, and it is Rodney King-reminiscent," said McConnell. "You have white cops wailing on a black guy. It plays so well to that, and it's such higher quality, and you have multiple angles to the tape. It's almost inexhaustible for the networks to play."

"With the competition for viewers on the cable news channels being so keen, as distasteful as this sounds, it makes for good video, for good television," said Darryl Parks, WLW program director. "That's why it's being shown over and over and over again.

Parks said that ever since the April 2001 riots following the shooting death of 19-year-old Timothy Thomas by a Cincinnati police officer, the station has made sure black community voices have been heard when such stories break to counter the predictable conservative positions of McConnell and Cunningham.

"We do make a concerted effort to have African-American community voices," Parks said. "We want to make sure we are more broad-based."

Parks said, for example, in the past week the station has featured extensive talk interviews with such black leaders as Human Relations Commission head Cecil Thomas, Rev. Jesse Lee Petersen, and attorney Ken Lawson, who is representing Jones' family. Meanwhile, the network TV talk shows have been acting like the local radio talk wars, making stars of the local radio media and often featuring the polarized viewpoints.

Ware appeared on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show Thursday night. Cunningham has been on Fox's "Hannity and Colmes" twice this week, including a debate on Hannity's national radio show with activist Nate Livingston on Wednesday.

Parks said the station has had calls from CNN and MSNBC also looking for talk radio hosts to appear on upcoming segments.
---------------
Interesting to see how the GC community may or may not mirror this. I think most posters are Af-Am, but culturally, and to some degree politically, we're all over the board.

Growing up in Cincinnati, Lincoln Ware has been a solid guy for a long time, and I'm glad to see him trying to bring some clarity to this situation.