Template:Infobox civil conflict
The Cincinnati Uprising of 2001 was a series of civil disorders & unrest which took place in and around the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio from April 9 to 13, 2001. The riots were the largest urban disturbance in the United States since the L.A. Uprising of 1992.
The unrest began in response to a long history of abuse by the Cincinnati power structure. Police killed people with impunity, and were rarely indicted on any charged[1]. The early 2000's showed no change in the killings. One night in April saw the killing of 19-year-old Timothy Thomas, an unarmed African American, at the hands of Cincinnati Police Department Patrolman Stephen Roach. Police records say they were attempting to arrest him for non-violent misdemeanors, most of which were traffic citations. Tensions were already high following a series of other incidents of alleged police brutality and racial profiling, including two deaths.
The shooting of an unarmed man that the police sought to arrest mostly for traffic citations aroused major outrage in the community. On April 9, a group of 200 protesters brandishing signs, including Thomas' mother Angela Leisure,[2] gathered outside Cincinnati City Hall while the city council was in session, to demand public explanation for Thomas' shooting.[3] The protesters also demanded to know the results of the police investigation of the shooting, but were told the department was not ready and was still investigating.[2] The council members were trapped inside city hall for three hours and did not respond to the crowd's demands.[3] Later that evening, several hundred residents gathered outside the Cincinnati Police District 1 headquarters in Over-the-Rhine and confronted a line of police officers on horseback and in police cruisers. For about an hour, the crowd threw stones and bottles at police, smashed the station's front door, pulled the station flag from its mast and re-hung it upside down. Police in riot gear dispersed the crowd with tear gas, bean bags and rubber bullets. Ten arrests were made during the incident.[3]
Ultimately it was determined the uprising caused $3.6 million in damage to businesses and another $1.5 to $2 million to the city. A subsequent community boycott of downtown businesses had an estimated adverse impact of $10 million on the area.
- ↑ http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2001/04/15/loc_stories_of.html
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rucker & Upton 2006, p. 109.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Waddington 2007, p. 65.
