I'm hit at the Bowl, bad of the Bowl, bad the Bowl.
Several weeks ago I spoke to Sergeant Dan Hills of CPD about doing an exit
interview. We kind of agreed to do it today because you only have about
four hours remaining and then you'll hand over power and a secret ceremony in the
basement of Lodge sixty nine on on Central Parkway. Sergeant Dan, welcome.
I think for the first time in the studio. Am I right or wrong?
I think I think we did this once before, but it was several
years ago. All right, let's talk about it. Why it's time come,
you're leaving. I give the American people the reason that Dan Hills is
leaving CPD and the union. Well, well, I love CPD because I
came to the end of my might drop. That's one of those acronyms over
things, an acronym nowadays for retirement option plan. You can only do eight
years. I finished that in May of twenty two last year, so I
left the department. So I'm the first person to serve in the presidency as
a retired person for any amount of time. It doesn't pay so much to
service in your retirement. But I agree to finish out a term, and
that term ends in December. But I've been the president now for eight years,
as the longest you can be a US president, so that should probably
be the longest be the FOP president too. Who's gonna take over and seize
power at six or seven o'clock tonight, Well, there's two people running,
and that would be Sergeant Dion Mack and Offsher ken Kober. And you know,
I'm not just voting going on. There's voting going on as we speak.
There is voting going on, and I'm not gonna make any predictions or
I have no how many people vote. There's about a thousand cops is it
all? About nine hundred policemen? But the retired retired folks can vote to
I think in the last election somewhere in neighborhood seven or eight hundred total people.
A good turnout, then yeah, yes, sir, whoever does it
wins. I mean you can say this is legitimate and actually someone's watching the
ballots. There's no drop boxes anywhere, are there are their IDs required or
something? Well, there's there's paper ballots. And in this case, you
know, we're not we're not talking about something as as large as the United
States of America or organization. We still recognize most people. So if you
walked up and wanted to vote and then an your name Willie, I'd say,
that's that guy's not a cop, right, Yeah, well, I
mean if you were a cop, will if I was, if you were
a cop, I'd say, you know, sign your name right there and
then then they you know, they do checks and make sure nobody voted twice
or anything. That happens all the time. Though you know a lot of
the Democrats want to vote like three times. Yeah, that's that's exactly right.
And maybe sometimes we have some deceased cops that vote, but that they're
still voting. Let's go back in time to the last year or the first
term of Ronald Reagan. There was a little guy coming out of Elder High
School named Dan and uh, Elder High School. You applied for Deer Park,
didn't didn't pass the exam. You had to go to a preparatory school
known as Elder and then you come out of Elder, Yes, sir,
And what happened to Dan Hills at that point? Well, Willie, at
the time, I wanted to be a park ranger. I wanted to be
a forest ranger. Forest ranger Dan, and I said, well, I
got to get myself some college and I gotta get myself some law enforcement experience.
So I figure I could get some college money and some law enforcement in
experience by joining the United States Army. What a novel concept, asked,
see service to the nation. I joined the United States Army in nineteen eighty
four, went to basic training and MP training all in one is all in
one place. You did eight weeks basic training, then you did eight weeks
at MP training in a place called Fort mccullan, Alabama. Probably illegal right
now. They've probably have changed the name at this point. They closed For
mccullan, Alabama because it's a chemical wasteland. I ate and drank the dirt
of Fort McClellan, Alabama about millions of dollars. I see these ads all
the time. It's a well, that's the one, that's the Marine Corps
one. Apparently Fort McCellan's worst. That just uh, Congress hasn't passed the
act that the boy. I wonder what happened to this face? You know
what how could look this bad? It was it was Fort mccullan, Alabama
that it did, so you went an attractive came out. You look like
George Clooney. No, not so good, not so good. And then
then from there I went to deutsch Land. I I served in what was
then West Germany. Uh. I was in a beautiful little town called a
Schoffenberg, West Germany. Just like Elvis you went to uh woman there no,
no, no, and and I could not sing either. I wasn't
wasn't good at singing. So I just I patrolled the streets. We patrolled
them in Volkswagen vands. You know, little green Volkswagen vands. You're in
a small town in Germany. This kid from elder Yeah, Volkswagen and Volkswagen
vans wearing a little MP helmet line. What are we going to do?
Well? What we We patrolled the streets. We could pull over American play
the vehicles if we saw them, if they looked to be acting up.
But but you know, mostly we did family tru just like policemen here do.
We did bar fights, theft reports, maybe a fight in a barracks,
something like that. We did things like that Gomer pile Stone. You
know what the German police called us, willy, No, they called us
the kinder pullet's eye. You know what that means? No, the kiddy
police. Yeah, because guys, we didn't not going to call us any
problem. We didn't have a clue of a clue. And I realize that
now, being a veteran of many years of a big city police department,
it's it's it's a wonder that more tragedy than happened by giving a bunch of
eighteen nineteen year old kids forty five cowber colt go out there and maintain order.
Yeah, I got there, maintain order in the law. So we
went out there and kind of winged it, you know. We we we'd
have a starget working with us on every ship that had some seasoning, but
mostly we were a bunch of ding dong kswighty seven rolls around. You come
out of the military, sure, and you're thinking, what am I going
to do with my life? Well, you know, I I gave up
the forest ranger. Bid. I had a friend of mine that was in
college up at Hockey Technical and he was saying, there, they're just isn't
a job is four stranger business right now? And uh? And I was
falling more and more in love with police work. And I thought you know
what I'm gonna I'm gonna come out. I'm gonna go to school for colineal
justice. I started it over at Nkure doing so good at the school thing,
but segment segment is it's not good, it's just got g I got
it. I got it. I got an elder degree, so I got
the same thing god elder degree. And so anyway, uh I I applied
for CPD and then the very first go around, I uh, I think
five thousand people took to imagine that five thousand now now we can't get five
hundred, but five thousand took the test, and really somehow I came in
like twelve, and I was really so you're smarter than people think. I
I think I got really lucky. I I just exam. I closed my
eyes and I see I'm picking seas right. So you got in? Did
you get into the first get go the very first kicks five thousand. I
came in twelve. Now I will say this, I got military points.
You do get military points. So that helped. That probably brought me up.
You know, maybe how many didn't how many in the class of five
thousand came down to how big? Maybe our class was thirty something. Uh
yeah, hard for me to recall back then. So four and seventy got
shown the door, will he But yeah, no, the elite of the
elite. I got to wear. I got to wear the badge. I
got to be trained up as a as a since police officer. And uh
after several months of training, I was assigned to District four. And my
coach, I'll give a shot out to my coach. He's still living,
doing well. John Morgan, John Morgan trained me up. He was a
lawyer, Morgan and Morgan. Maybe not maybe not maybe not this John Morgan,
but we ran, uh, we ran Carthage and heartwell part of District
four. Respect for law enforcement, how would you describe the conditions of the
community toward CPD like in the nineteen nineties. Well, I started eighty seven,
uh like, like I said, and then into the nineties there was
there was general respect for law enforcement back then. You know, judges would
send people to jail, am arrested somebody didn't they ended up in front of
Harry mceawain. That's a different issue. They were in trouble. Yeah,
they were in trouble. Not good, yeah, but yeah, the judges
backed us. You know, they they took not everything was on videos,
so you actually your your your word meant something and uh. I remember scoring
points with both prosecutor and defense attorney when I came in once on a ticket
and they said, you know, is this the person's driving the car?
And I said, I don't remember. Instead, you told the truth,
I told the truth. I said I don't remember. Right there, I
said I don't remember, and they dismissed it, and they both thanked me
a lot, and I thought, maybe I can, maybe I can get
somewhere by being justice done. Well, I believe justice was done because you
know, it's it's it's more important that the system be upright and honest than
it is to anyone actual conviction. The last thirty years, I have a
sense about half the judges and Hamleeny County take criminal violations seriously, about half
do not. Have you noticed a fundamental change in the Hemony County Courthouse?
Yeah, I would say, in general, on society across the board,
and you can quote me on this, I think we've gone cuckoo for cocoa
puffs. You know, we have to have law and order to be able
to have a functional society. And right now something you talk about off of
Willie, with people flooding across the border, with the big cities electing judges
that give no bad give no sentences. I mean, I really do kind
of marvel that things haven't unraveled. Even more, I think something bad's going
to happen. I think something really bad that's happen. Yes, sir,
we can't continue as far as the mayors that you've worked under. My memory
fails me a little bit. Past Chas Lucan. You had Rock sand Qualls
and Bobby Stern, and you had Tom Lucan and Charlie Lucan. He had
had them, and then you had Cranleigh and then uh Mark Mallory for a
long time, and uh now you have to have Purival on his way to
the big show, which is a stomp stopping off point point for him.
Which one or two marriage that you enjoy working with? And do you have
the guts to tell me one or two marriage you didn't enjoy working with Willie?
I'll be honest. You know, as a as a Cincinnati police officer,
especially a guy on third shift out in District four, District five,
District three places I worked, you really don't give a hoot about the politicians.
You care more about your sergeant, and you care about uh, you
care about who's sitting down at eight and one Plump Street. Uh. But
that completely changed when I, uh, when I became the FOP president,
I found myself having to deal with the people down there at City Hall.
And I could tell you that I had a really good relationship with John Cranley.
I found him sincerely caring about he's got no chance in the Democrat Party.
No, no, no, he would be no chance. Yeah.
No, he's he's like he's like a moderate and he's a moderate, yeah
right now he's he's a mega member almost yeah. And then you know,
so I really only had Cranley and an AFT tab and you know, Collery
kind kind of kind of luke warm. And since now, since twenty fifteen,
I think pretty much I had Cranley right away and then then then a
F tab and I'm kind of lukewarm on the AFT taber. But we don't
know yet because he's he looks like a great mayor. He physically looks present,
he's a handsome guy, good time you do anything. But you know
it's you know, he looks good he looks like the mayor. He's on
his way to Washington to do something. Anyway, this is a stopping off
point for him. I believe that we would have been the two or three
low points. High points are different, difficult because hopefully, but what are
the low points of my career in general? Yeah, well, obviously when
we lost when we lost people. I was one of the first officers that
responded the night that Dan Pope Ron Jeter were killed. I was actually I
was actually working the scene of the suicide of their killer. And we didn't
know at the time that Dan and Ron were like a half mile away from
us dead or dying, and uh, we were working that scene. And
uh then when somebody finally was able to put a couple of the puzzle pieces
together and responded over on Hollister and got on the radio, you know,
it was it was just it was a total almost panic feeling situation. We
had two officers down and and dead and we are dying in case of Ron
Jeter, and we had really no idea at the time that they were that
it was connected to the suicide of a police officer was chasing somebody that thought
was just breaking into cars and he killed himself and that was the that was
the no good thug that took the lives of Dan. What about Sonny Kim?
Sunny Kim is another one. I was off the night that Kevin Crayon
was killed, or I would have been really close to that because I was
working out of Parking Canine in the Mount Areas time. I was off that
night. But Sonny Kim. I knew Sonny a little bit, but one
of my very best friends was like Sonny's very best friend. There was this
connection. There was another policeman, of course, and I was the sergeant
in charge of District three that day and there was another sergeant work and so
when I heard what was happening, I told the sergeant that he was in
charge and I was going to head that way. And I think a command
officer saw on the computer screen that I was headed to District two, and
they they diverted me and had me go to the hospital to kind of hold
things down at the hospital. So I was there when Sonny arrived in the
ambulance, and uh, just witnessing that whole thing. I went into the
trauma bay and watched them make attempts to save Sonny's life. And you know,
policemen aren't as tough as they all pretend to be, because I can
tell you what my knees were. My knees were getting wobbly and I had
to step out as as they work, so you know, so hard and
uh, you know, doing what they could for son, but it was
it was too late. Sunny was gone. Something you said a few months
ago to me, and that is I asked you, Dan Hills, if
you had an appropriate age son or daughter, would you say you gotta sit
for the test and you got to become a cop in Cincinnati, I could
see a sheriff's deputy or maybe a Indian hill ranger or Madeira cop or maybe
Delhi township. Yep, And you said no. Does that hurt you?
Oh very much? So, I mean I take great pride in you know,
since sat police officer, and I would never try to stop my son.
I have a son that's of the agent. He could do that.
I'd never try to stop him. It's just not it wouldn't be what I
would advising would be the best. I I sometimes draw a little bit of
parallel the war on crime and the war on drugs. All these things we
did over the years a little bit to you know, Vietnam. It's it's
a war that we're not really in for. It's one that when something goes
wrong, everybody throws up their hands and says, you know me, no,
I mean we didn't we didn't want it done that way. And so
you know, uh, the city leaders and and a lot of times top
administrators in the police department and stuff, they're they're they're they're a little uh
happy on the toss somebody under the bus trigger. For me, that's the
CCA and Irish Roley in that crowd wants to find something wrong. They just
flat out hey, cops, the CCA and Irish Roly. And that's part
of the problem too. You know, you have I have anti police activists
that have actually being paid by taxpayer dollars and have an organization and have a
say in the police department. And when people are you know, in police
administration are acting like that's okay, and this is just part of what we,
you know, we have to do. Like, I don't think I
could be a top administrator in Tayson's a police apartment. They're told me that
I sit down and take advice ife Irish Roley, I'd be like, you're
gonna have to get somebody else. I'm watching this morning. I think it
was NBC Today's show head a George Gastone who's the Loberal prosecutor in Los Angeles.
His top assistant has a T shirt that says, quote, cops are
killing us. So this is the top district attorney in charge of felony trials
just below like Melissa Powers. This would be I don't know, the top
person and her T shirt at work is cops are killing us and she's a
prosecutor. Yeah, well you know, and what's irish, Rollie, Well,
we know what we know is the very opposite would is the case if
the police like picked up steaks, packed up their tents and left the inner
cities of America, the killing would be you know, triple tripled, quadrupled.
It would be it'd be very, very sad. I think we'd be
like a third world country. We're at it that way anyway, but but
it'd be like a third world country, darn near overnight and so as much
as it's sometimes and this is why I tell the cops is that you know,
sometimes when you think you're not accomplishing anything. You know, when everybody
wakes up and they can still drive to work and it still can get around,
go out for an evening and everything else. You're accomplishing that because if
you weren't here, nobody could do those things. Ten years from now,
on the course we're on, it'll be Baltimore, Washington, d C.
It'll be Detroit. And because the quality of person doesn't want to become begin
as a cop, and the oversight is not oversight, it's apostleizing as to
what's wrong with police. Cops are killing us. That's the attitude. We're
going to find you guys wrong about something and make your life miserable. And
that's what the CCA does of civilian oversight that has an attitude. Well up
against the clock. I guess our paths will cross again. But it's been
a pleasure the last eight years, Willie. I want to thank you.
I want to thank you for allowing me on the show and for me to
speak on behalf of my coppers, and it's been a pleasure working with you.
We'll see what happens in the future, yes, sir, we'll see.
Introduce me to the new guy, whoever it is. I will do
that. Will and see if he's got the guts to come on, I'll
see if he's got the guts to twenty seven. Thank you, Dan Sure
Cunningham seven hundred wlw Okay, guys, you hate to shop, but you
do want to make her happy. You do want it to say I love it so