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Unhappy, that's happy answer it now Bill cunning in the Great America.
And of course is a great debate going on in our community about the level
of law enforcement required in certain areas of our county and throughout the entire county.
And there's a different way of looking at things. When I have on
Melissa Power's good friend Rob Sanders from Kenton County, they have a different outlook.
When I have on the prosecutor of Campbell County, they have a very
harsh outlook. When I talked to Butler County and Warren County, very strong
law enforcement. And we have a debate going on because I watched an interview
at Channel five a couple of nights back with the relatively new juvenile court judge
Kerry Bloom was in charge of Hamilt County Juvenile Court, and she made the
statement that to lock up a juvenile for two or three nights is devastating to
that kid, that somehow that'll change the course of their life if they have
to spend one or two or three days. At twenty twenty Auburn, which
is j juvenile jail and she doesn't want to send anybody to a night in
jail and joining you and I now is Melissa Powers how many County prosecutor?
And first of all, I'm not sure if you saw that specific interview,
but you know what, you know what to deal with. When you were
in juvenile court as a judge, Kerrie Bloom was more or less under your
tutelage as the junior judge. Now he's in charge. Are you concerned that
when you have women who's beaten up on metro buses and the four girls are
out before the paperwork is completed, are kids downtown committing rather vicious assaults that
aren't locked up? Are you concerned about Hambleton County losing its way and being
even more reckless than it is now? Well? Absolutely, First, I
do want to make a correction. She was not under my tutelege. She
was completely in dependent of me. We had completely different philosophies, we produced
different results on our cases. However, I recognized that she was a colleague
and she was independent of me. I didn't agree with her decisions. I
didn't agree with her philosophy. She is a soft on crime advocate, as
you can tell just by her interview, and if you take her her statement
about you can't lock a child up because of the trauma involved in the lockup
with them, Basically she's saying, and she does believe this, is that
she wants to get rid of the detention facility. We wouldn't even have No
one would be held under any circumstances when you go to jail, when you
go to twenty twenty or detention facility, that's a deterrent. People don't want
to go there. They don't want to go, They don't want to be
there. They don't want especially the juveniles, they don't want to be separated
from their families. We get that, their friends, we understand that,
but that's the deterrent. When you eliminate that, there's no reason why not
to go be somebody up at the on a metro bus, or go steal
from a store when you know nothing's going to happen to you. She's basically
saying, crime does pay, and there's nothing to stop somebody from committing crimes.
Uh, you want, you need to have consequences, You need to
make it uncomfortable. There needs to be responsibility and accountability. If you're going
to commit a crime, and when you said the message that we're not.
We're dismissing all assault charges, we're dismissing all resisting arrest charges and putting them
on an unofficial dock, at which the conclusion is a dismissal. So we're
not going to entire categories of crime. You're not serving the community you're trying
to help, and you're not helping the children that you think you're helping.
You're putting them right back into the same neighborhoods that are high risk, extremely
vulnerable neighborhoods, making everybody that in that in those neighborhoods less safe in my
opinion, Go ahead, Melissa, you said something very important right there that
an entire category of criminal offenses have been decriminalized by Judge Bloom, which is,
what of the lists that if juvenile also charged with assault, resisting arrest,
a bunch of other crimes which can be felon these or misdemeanors, she
puts them on the unofficial docket. There's no record of it, and no
one goes to jail for categories of crime, right, You're correct, So,
yeah, an entire So basically she is dismantling the Criminal Justice Code.
The criminal code, there won't be one, and that's that's the goal.
I think that is the end goal. She doesn't like it. She thinks
it's sim racist, systemically racist, and so she doesn't want it to exist,
and she's going to recalculate it and reformulate it the way she thinks it
should be, which is basically, nobody goes to jail. There shouldn't be
jails, nobody should be held pending trial, and then of course used,
as I said earlier, categories of crime, they're not being prosecuted in her
court. So when I read all over the media Melissa Powers that the crime
rate is down, the crime rate is down, Well, the crime rate
is down because we decriminalize crime. That is, you have hundreds of individuals
who should be charged with crimes in Hamlin County that aren't charged. And so
if the crime rate is down, that's all I have. The crime rate
is down. It's down because juvenile court judges like Kerry Bloom does not believe
that anyone should be locked up, and she dismisses when you put on the
unofficial docket, that means it's dismissed. So of course the crime rate is
down because we don't charge people with crime. And you one other thing before
we talk about Rwayne Reading and Russell Bell, You and my wife Penny spent
a lot of time in Room May as young prosecutors calling cases. Can you
recall how busy Room May was, which is the place in Hamliny County,
all over the county, from the city to Green Township Anderson Township that criminals
would be brought and a bond would be said. Have you recently been in
roommate to watch what happens? I have not recently been in. I've seen
photos, you know, and some footage, and I'm shocked because, as
you said years ago, the courtroom would be packed, absolutely packed to the
you know, to the bills keep taken and attorneys you know, standing all
over the place, officers everywhere, and it's just empty. It's it's pretty
it's it's shocking. And I think they're even using it for storage some of
us. I saw something. Yeah, it is. It's really hard to
believe that that's the way, that's where we are. I mean, as
far as the Justice Center, there was always problems with overcrowding. We don't
have that problem. Now, floors are shut down. In twenty twenty,
floors are shut down. So, I mean there's a lot of different things
happening, but it is not the same as it used to be. But
getting back to when you're just missing cases or their citizens that don't come forward
because they know that justice system is broken when we don't have judges enforcing the
law, enforcing making the appropriate punishment for the severity of the crime. So
witnesses don't come forward because they're not going to be safe. And it can
be anything from a simple case to murder cases to rape cases. Why come
forward? So that's why crime can be down as well. Victims are not
coming forward, they won't testify. We how many times do you hear somebody
with a shot, But they're not telling the cops who did it? Right?
Well, Christ, they know nothing's going to happen. There's nothing going
to happen. About a year ago, I had a friend of a friend
that had a PBC, a passing bad check, and I go down to
get a bond set. That's the last case I had. About a year
and a half ago. I walk into ten to nine and there's like five
people there and I walk up to David Wood, who's the county prosecutor,
sitting there inside the glass. I said, David, am I in the
wrong room. Well what is this? He said, what do you mean?
I said, where is everybody? He said, this is what we
got. People are not being arrested. Cops are told in Cincinnati don't pull
somebody over because you might discover something and get into a frakus. And I'm
glad you brought that up about what's happening in Saint Francis Serif. I had
a Paula Christian of Channel nine the other day in Shiri Pololo, and they
talked about police cars next to Saint Francis Serif, where drugs are being administered
interveniously, that the open sex pools of urine and poop, drug deals,
burglaries, and they shut down Republic Street to move it over a block.
And I asked many in the city why don't the city cops arrest these individuals?
And it comes down to the city manager, Cheryl Long and the mayor.
They don't want they want to be able to say that, you know,
crime is down, even though there's hundreds of crime And politically, I
mean, how does that Melissa you've been in law enforcement for more than thirty
years, are you a little bit disgusted by this? It's it is very
upsetting because and I don't think and I'm glad that you're bringing a light on
it, because I don't think that people understand, like the businesses downtown understand.
They think, well, our cops are great, Yes, our cops
are great. That when they're being told not to make arrest, just just
be show a presence. And on the banksy after all the violence we've had
that one summer, and no arrest were being made down there. So it
placates the business people and maybe the community. But if you really know what's
behind the scenes, they're not making arrest. And then I've had I've talked
to people up in Price Hill and they said, you know that they've been
they've been hit, had a hit and run on their car with their car,
and they won't and they know exactly who did it, and it was
an illegal. No, we don't arrest illegals. We don't. We don't
charge, we don't, we don't arrest juveniles. We you know, I
mean, these are things that these are being statements being made by the citizens,
And I think We need people to be speaking out very loud and questioning
what is going on, because why are the why is the city Cincinnati being
handcuffed? Why is our police department being handcuffed? And and what what is
it? You know basically? So, I mean, it really just keeps
goes deeper and deeper. It's not just the judges. It could be you
know, we've got there's a philosophy that it's defund the police. They won't
say it, they won't tell you that, but that's what that's basically demoralize
the police department, This catch and release programs that they want to enforce.
We see it over and over again. And it really isn't about politics in
my opinion, it's philosophy and it's about safety. So do you want public
safety? Do you want our community to thrive? Do you want businesses to
you know, to come and make investments in downtown Cincinnati? And there's been
so much investment, so much good has been done down there, and to
see what's happening, it just breaks your heart because I grew up here.
I love our city. I want it to be a great place. I
want to be, you know, feel comfortable. You know, our family
members, you know, to go down or anybody. Everybody should be able
to enjoy what Cincinnati has to offer. Now. Lastly, Wayne Reid and
Russell Bell are now in their sixties and they were convicted without question of murdering
police officer Charles Berdzel, and I think in a week or two there's going
to be a parole hearing for either one or both of them. Explain how
the American people can get involved. We the parole hearing date is May thirtieth,
and it's very important. The parole board does listen to the public and
the public can put pressure and it does make a difference. So I want
to encourage everyone out there to send a message. You go to our website,
Hamilton County Prosecutor dot org, so it's HDPRS hcpros dot org. Go
to the parole watchtab and it's a form that they can fill out as that
you object to the parole being granted to these two cop killers. It was
a vicious, tragic, horrible situation. Our victim is he was a US
Army veteran. He served two tours in Vietnam. He was given a purple
heart and after he was honorably dischargey it became a Cincinnati police officer, and
on this date, back in July of nineteen seventy eight, he came back.
He approached and responded to stop the vehicle. And inside the vehicle was
Wayne Reid and Russell Bell and they were staking out and casing a convenience store.
And an off duty officer saw them and called it in the District five,
and it was Berzol that came. He was on duty and approached the
vehicle and asked the occupants to exit, And when Reid exited the car,
he fired his handgun at Burzil. It struck him in the face. He
fell to the ground. Then as he was laying face down in the street,
he was still alive, probably would have survived his injuries. Reid stood
over and executed him and shot him two additional times then that killed him.
Because of they were on they should have been on death row, but at
the time Ohio had ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. It was a very brief
moment in time. So that's what's so offensive about this case. Anybody else,
in any other situation, these guys would have been on death row,
and they have already been executed by now. But because of this glitch in
the law at the time and this ruling that only stood for a brief moment
of time, these guys are now they just have a life sentence. Life
in prison without parole was not an option. So they are eligible for parole,
which no cop killer should be eligible for parole ever. But you know
that wouldn't be a concern of ours. We would think the parole board would
keep them in but not nowadays that's not the case, and we just can't
trust the parole boards to do the right thing any longer. And we really
really need the people in the community to help us hold them accountable by sending
messages to the parole board. We've done this before. We did it on
that David Carol case was effective. We were able to keep public pressure kept
him in prison. He's David Carroll, if you remember, killed Mike Marcus
Paisil the young foster kid. So the pro board will listen if there's public
pressure, if they think nobody's paying attention, they'll grant these guys parole.
And they don't deserve it, all right, we got to run. But
when you have a juvenile court judge who will not allow a vicious juvenile defendant
to be in jail for one day or two days. She thinks that the
assault on the mentality of the criminal is somehow outweighing the pain of the victim.
We got major problems. We have less crime because we've decriminalized crime,
and all of a sudden, cops aren't doing their job. But Wayne Reid
Russell Bell Hamley County Website, Prosecutor's Office once again, Melissa Powers. Always
great to speak with you, and thank you for coming on the Bill Cunningham
Show. Thank you, Missy. All the best to you, Bell.
Thank you, God bless you. Let's continue with more and becomes available five
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