Cincinnati police not as racist as columnist thinks

Editor,

I realize that the column "Only We Can Prevent Riots" in the April 16 Daily Lobo was pulled off the wire, but that doesn't excuse the Lobo's editors from responsibility for printing such inflammatory garbage.

As Bryan Proffitt correctly points out, "The mainstream media are doing very little to present any information in regard to what is actually going on in the city."

Unfortunately, those same deficient media outlets appear to be the source of his information. Had he bothered to do a little research, he would realize that the claim that "In Cincinnati, the police have murdered 15 young black men in the past six years" is an outright lie.

Rather than simply passing along propaganda slogans created by those who profit from racial tension, why don't we take a look at some facts? For example, of those 15 "young black men," five of them either shot at or aimed handguns at the officers who killed them. One, who had just finished nearly severing a girl's head with an axe, lunged at officers - with a knife. Another attacked an officer with a nail-studded board.

In two of the cases, the "victims" attempted to kill police officers using automobiles, including one incident in which a 12-year-old car thief dragged an officer to his death before succumbing to his own wounds.

Of the 14 incidents prior to the recent shooting of Timothy Thomas, which is still under investigation, all but one was ruled a proper use of force. In the one remaining case, the officers involved have been indicted and are pending trial.

If there's a lesson to be learned from these cases, it's not that Cincinnati police officers are a roving band of racists who are randomly shooting black men. As I see it, the lesson is, "Don't try to kill a cop and you won't get shot."

For Proffitt and other budding journalists, the lesson is, "Check your facts and you won't make a fool of yourself in print."

Jeffrey Gunn

Graduate student

Former Daily Lobo columnist