Cincinnati
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Curfew rolled back
after calm night in Cincinnati
By Joe
Milicia The Associated Press
Posted April 15 2001, 1:40 PM EDT
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Timothy Thomas is shown in an undated
family photo (AP) See larger image
Cincinnati police officers arrest a
man for a curfew violation See
larger image(AP/Tony Dejak)
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CINCINNATI -- The mayor rolled back the city's dusk-to-dawn
curfew today in response to a calm night following the funeral of a young
black man whose shooting triggered a week of unrest.
Mayor Charles
Luken said the curfew will start at 11 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. to allow
families more time to celebrate Easter together.
''Hopefully today
can be a day of prayer. A day of peace. A day of coming together,'' Luken
said.
The April 7 death of Timothy Thomas, 19, led to three days of
rioting in predominantly black neighborhoods that stopped when the mayor
instituted the curfew on Thursday.
Thomas, who was wanted on 14
warrants for misdemeanors and traffic violations, was unarmed when he was
shot while running from police. He is the fourth black man killed by
police since November in this city of 331,000 -- 43 percent of which is
black.
Stephen Roach, the officer who shot Thomas, is on paid
administrative leave.
Overnight Saturday, police arrested 187
people for curfew violations and got calls about shots being fired, and
sporadic instances of rocks and bottles being thrown at police
cruisers.
''It was almost a boring night for us,'' police Chief
Thomas Streicher said.
Since Thomas' death, more than 700 people
have been arrested for looting, arson, vandalism and curfew
violations.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who cut short a trip to Africa to
fly to Cincinnati, said today that the federal government must take a
leadership role in improving relationships between city police departments
and blacks, and that President Bush must get involved.
''He has a
crisis in his country,'' said the Baptist minister, a leading critic of
New York City police's violent confrontations with blacks. ''It's time for
a national response and real change, not just telling us to quiet
down.''
On Saturday, hundreds of protesters marched through the
riot-scarred Over-the-Rhine neighborhood after the funeral.
Four
people were injured by crowd-control bean bags shot by police and State
Highway Patrol officers, but the march was otherwise peaceful. Police and
the FBI were investigating why officers also shot bean bags at a group
milling on streets shortly after the funeral ended.
''We don't feel
completely like this is over. We recognize that in certain parts of the
city tensions still are a little high,'' Luken said.
NAACP
President Kweisi Mfume and Keith Fangman, president of the local police
union, appeared on ''Fox News Sunday'' and ABC's ''This Week With Sam
Donaldson and Cokie Roberts'' to debate the deaths of 15 blacks by police
since 1995.
Fangman said 12 deaths involved suspects who confronted
police with deadly weapons. He questioned Mfume on whether police officers
should have the right to use deadly force in a life-threatening
situation.
''Do you believe that when an unarmed suspect is running
from police, has no weapon, makes no deadly moves, should be shot down in
a dark alley like a dog, like a pig, like an animal?'' Mfume
said.
Lt. Col. Ron Twitty, the police department's highest ranking
black official, said the racial problems that have been stirred up should
be solved at the local -- not national -- level.
''The decisions
about quality of life in Cincinnati should be made by our leadership in
Cincinnati, our city government,'' he said.
Copyright © 2001, The Associated Press
Copyright
2001, Sun-Sentinel Co. & South Florida Interactive,
Inc.
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