Speaker 1: By Billy Cunningham, the Great America. Welcome this Monday at
Speaker 1: Dude in the tri State. The Reds completely the last
Speaker 1: six games. They went three and three. The last couple
Speaker 1: of games in Chicago not so good, but nonetheless I'll
Speaker 1: take us to three and three road tripped back out
Speaker 1: of tonight, Tuesday and Wednesday in Milwaukee, and we continue.
Speaker 1: But joining you and I now is Mark Pete Meyer.
Speaker 1: And for those who may not know, he spent like
Speaker 1: thirty to forty years in the prosecutor's office. He knows
Speaker 1: where the bodies are buried all over Hamleton County many
Speaker 1: many years ago. And then whenever riots at Lucasville, the
Speaker 1: state of Ohio looked around and said, who do we
Speaker 1: find in the state of Ohio to prosecute the criminals
Speaker 1: who've killed guards and other inmates at Lucasville. And that
Speaker 1: guy twenty years ago was Mark Pete Meyer. And since
Speaker 1: then he's been with every prosecutor for the last thirty
Speaker 1: five years, beginning with Artnay and then Joe Eaters, then
Speaker 1: Mike Allen, then Joe Dieters, and then since then he's
Speaker 1: been with Connie Pillach, Melissa Powers. He's been there and
Speaker 1: knows where the bodies are buried. Once again to Mark
Speaker 1: Pete Meyer, Welcome to the Bill Cunningham Show. And first
Speaker 1: of all, Mark, many are uncertain as to what a
Speaker 1: grand jury does. This is in relationship to what's going
Speaker 1: to happen to the Cincinnati cop to be indicted or
Speaker 1: not indicted for the killing of Ryan Hinton about a
Speaker 1: month ago or so. So can you tell the American people?
Speaker 1: Do the grand jurors come from Mount Olympus, how are
Speaker 1: they selected? What's it like in the grand jury room?
Speaker 1: And formed the American people some of the basics.
Speaker 2: Okay, And first of all, Bill, I actually started forty
Speaker 2: four years ago for sy Lee, so four.
Speaker 1: Holy god, you're not that old, are you.
Speaker 2: No. I came right out of Roger Bacon High School
Speaker 2: into the prosecutor's office. So yeah. But anyway, the grand
Speaker 2: jurors are selected just like a regular jury. To brand
Speaker 2: seiss Is the juror commissioner. Every two weeks they subpoena
Speaker 2: probably around sixty or so people that are just on
Speaker 2: the voting roles, just like regular jurors. They show up
Speaker 2: down the jury Commissioner's office, they go before the presiding
Speaker 2: judge and Out of the sixty years so that are notified,
Speaker 2: maybe thirty five to forty show up and our prosecutors
Speaker 2: talk to them to make sure nobody has a conflict.
Speaker 2: If you don't get paid by your job, you're excused.
Speaker 2: If you've got to schedule vacation, or if you have
Speaker 2: any kind of particular reason, you can't serve. But out
Speaker 2: of that we winto it down to twenty two people
Speaker 2: every two weeks. So every other Monday, twenty two people
Speaker 2: are served picked to serve on two grand juries. They
Speaker 2: are brought over to our office. We give them like
Speaker 2: a one hour introduction video of how to be a
Speaker 2: grand juror. From there they start their service. So there
Speaker 2: are eleven jurors actually that are sitting in the grand
Speaker 2: jury room to hear every case. After the case is presented,
Speaker 2: two of them will step out, just their kind of alternates,
Speaker 2: and they take turns doing that, and they make the
Speaker 2: decision who's going to step out, And at that point,
Speaker 2: the only people in the grand jury room or the
Speaker 2: nine grand jurors, they have already heard the evidence, the
Speaker 2: prosecutors told them the law, and they vote whether or
Speaker 2: not to indate each of these grand jurors. Probably here's
Speaker 2: fifteen to twenty cases a day, so they we kind
Speaker 2: of rust these cases through pretty quickly. Anytime someone is
Speaker 2: arrested for a felony, that case has to go to
Speaker 2: the grand jury. If you're locked up, it has to
Speaker 2: go to the grand jury within ten days. If you're
Speaker 2: out on bond, it's got to be within fifteen days.
Speaker 2: And if that's not done, the case is dismissed. So
Speaker 2: the grand jurors deliberate, and again they may only deliberate
Speaker 2: a minute. Most of these cases are pretty cut and dry.
Speaker 2: They take a vote and the nine grand jurors, at
Speaker 2: least seven of them, have to vote to indict a
Speaker 2: case for it to go forward. That's called a true bill.
Speaker 2: If six or less vote to indict, it's not enough
Speaker 2: and the case is ignored. So it's in the grand
Speaker 2: jury room. The only people in the gend injury room
Speaker 2: is the witness testifying, the prosecutor, and the grand jurors.
Speaker 2: In the old days, we had a court reporter, but
Speaker 2: now everything is recorded, so there's no defendant, there's no
Speaker 2: defense attorney, there's no judge. It's just the prosecutor, the witness,
Speaker 2: and the grand jurors.
Speaker 1: And what's the standard of proof. So I've heard some
Speaker 1: civilians say, you know what, you can diet a ham sandwich,
Speaker 1: you've been involved in litterally tens of thousands of felony indictments,
Speaker 1: And can the prosecutor direct give word by inflection of
Speaker 1: voice of what the prosecutor might say. You know, you
Speaker 1: might say, well, I don't think this is much of
Speaker 1: a case, but we're going to present it to you anyway.
Speaker 1: Or you might say, you know what, I think this
Speaker 1: is a serious case. I think you should indict. How
Speaker 1: much influence would you have in the grand jury when
Speaker 1: it comes to their decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't really make a closing argument, but we
Speaker 2: don't want a grand juror to indict the case that
Speaker 2: we can't prove. So we tell them that in common
Speaker 2: police court it's got to be proofed beyond the reasonable doubt,
Speaker 2: and you need to be convinced basically to that same
Speaker 2: level before you indict the case. I know some people
Speaker 2: say it's only probable cause, but again, we don't think
Speaker 2: it's fair. And every prosecutor I serve for from sy
Speaker 2: Lease to Countie Pillage doesn't want a grand jury to
Speaker 2: indict a case that they think maybe the person did.
Speaker 2: That's not the standard we rely on. So it's got
Speaker 2: to be a solid case. Again, we don't want to
Speaker 2: have to go into a courtroom and try to prove
Speaker 2: a case that maybe didn't even happen.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you don't want a case in diet it,
Speaker 1: you don't present it at all. Correct. If you look
Speaker 1: at all the evidence, you talk to the witnesses, talk
Speaker 1: to the investigating officer, could be from Green Township, from Madera,
Speaker 1: from the city of Cincinnati. And if when you were
Speaker 1: in charge, which in forty four years you're like the
Speaker 1: first sergeant of the whole brigade. If you're saying I
Speaker 1: don't think there's a case here, you don't present it
Speaker 1: the first place.
Speaker 2: Correct, Correct, that's correct. We will actually go back to
Speaker 2: the municipal court, have a municipal court judge sign an
Speaker 2: entry dismissing the case, especially if the person's locked up.
Speaker 2: I mean, we move as fast as we can. Sometimes
Speaker 2: the lab report will come back negative it's a drug case.
Speaker 2: It may be any other kind of case where we
Speaker 2: rely on some kind of chemical test and if it
Speaker 2: comes back that it's not a drug or it's not
Speaker 2: this again, we will not even present the case. So
Speaker 2: those are the cases that are signed by the police.
Speaker 2: Now there's another category of cases that are called direct hearings,
Speaker 2: where the police haven't signed to charge yet they present
Speaker 2: the case to us and we decide that we will
Speaker 2: go direct to the grand jury. Good example of that
Speaker 2: was the Marcus Fisel case, the little boy that was
Speaker 2: hit by the foster parents. That's the case that Joe
Speaker 2: neither decided that we were going to present to the
Speaker 2: grand jury, and we actually subpoened to the grand jury
Speaker 2: the suspects in the case, which was Liz and David
Speaker 2: Carroll and Amy Baker, who was the living girlfriend of Dave.
Speaker 2: And at that particular case, Liz Carroll actually ended up
Speaker 2: confessing in the grand jury when she was questioned by
Speaker 2: myself and cho Theaters and Dan Bryer from Butler count
Speaker 2: or from Claremont County. So it's kind of a rare
Speaker 2: situation where a defendant will appear. But in that particular case,
Speaker 2: they were so cocky and so arrogant that they were
Speaker 2: going to get away with what they did. They said,
Speaker 2: bring it on, bring it on. Joe Dieters up here
Speaker 2: before the grand jury, and it turned that back from them.
Speaker 1: Mark Pete Myer on police shootings cases You've been involved
Speaker 1: in everyone for the last forty some years. Do you
Speaker 1: present to the grand jury a police shooting case that
Speaker 1: you do not believe you can prove a trial that
Speaker 1: you don't believe it should be indicted Having there have
Speaker 1: been numerous circumstances, including the last five or six months
Speaker 1: in which there were police shootings, I think are the
Speaker 1: one that you and Connie Pillage said, we're not going
Speaker 1: to present this at all.
Speaker 2: If it's a clear cut justifying police shooting, we will
Speaker 2: not present it. That's not all counties act that way,
Speaker 2: but in a case where we believe, you know it, Basically,
Speaker 2: if a suspect points a gun out an officer and
Speaker 2: the officer shoots the person, it's not going to be presented.
Speaker 2: If there's any threat to the officer or to anyone
Speaker 2: else in the public and the officer ends up firing,
Speaker 2: it's not going to be presented. Now, sometimes it's a
Speaker 2: I don't want to say a close call, but it's
Speaker 2: something I give you an example, the Beaver Creek Walmart
Speaker 2: case that I was asked to call it in to
Speaker 2: handle buck up in Green County that ten years ago,
Speaker 2: there was so much public protest and so much public
Speaker 2: discussion about that. I myself believed it was a justified
Speaker 2: police shooting. But basically so, you wouldn't have this prosecutor
Speaker 2: from several counties away making the decision. I made the
Speaker 2: decision to present it to the Green County grand jury,
Speaker 2: and they unanimously ignored the case within about a minute
Speaker 2: of me closing the door and walking out of the room.
Speaker 2: So again, sometimes even though a case we believe it
Speaker 2: was justified, there's so much public input and comment and
Speaker 2: discussion about it. Times a safer course of action is okay, say, okay,
Speaker 2: we will present it to a grand jury. We'll let
Speaker 2: some citizens look at this and make the decision. And
Speaker 2: sometimes it's I don't want to say it's good cover,
Speaker 2: but it's just policy. I think to actually take that
Speaker 2: extra step in cases where it may be a close call.
Speaker 1: You had a case I forget that it was on
Speaker 1: I seventy five. I think someone that didn't speak of
Speaker 1: the English very well, who confronted a police officer and
Speaker 1: he was shot, and this was about two or three
Speaker 1: months ago under Connie Pillach. Why why did you not
Speaker 1: present that case to the grand jury?
Speaker 2: Because he hain't believed that the person was a threat
Speaker 2: to the officer. The officer did not know he did
Speaker 2: not understand English, but he wasn't following his commands. It
Speaker 2: looked like he had his hand in his pocket. He's
Speaker 2: told to get his hands out, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, he brings it out of his pocket towards
Speaker 2: the officer. The officer fired a shot. We actually went
Speaker 2: out to the scene on that one. And again it's
Speaker 2: something that if it's a credible threat and one thing too.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a split second decision by a police officer,
Speaker 2: and it's the only job I can think of that
Speaker 2: if you make a mistake in that split second, you
Speaker 2: may be going to prison. You know, if Jamar Chase
Speaker 2: drops a touchdown pass, he doesn't go to prison. If
Speaker 2: Joe Burrow throws a pick six, or if Eli data
Speaker 2: Cruz struts out ten times in a row, they can't
Speaker 2: go to prison for making mistakes. The police officer is
Speaker 2: the only person I can think of that if you
Speaker 2: make a decision in a split second that turns out
Speaker 2: to be wrong, you absolutely face jail time. And that's
Speaker 2: something we've taken the mind in presenting these kinds of cases.
Speaker 2: It's the last thing a police officer wants to do
Speaker 2: is fire is gun and he's called into situations that
Speaker 2: we cannot handle ourselves. There's a threat, help, I need
Speaker 2: the police. We call them into those situations, and again
Speaker 2: we take that in mind when considering how the police
Speaker 2: officer acted in that situation.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about what happened to the Taste of Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: Of course, you were out of the office about you
Speaker 1: left the office about a month month and a half ago,
Speaker 1: and the Taste of Cincinnati A shooting. Guy's name was
Speaker 1: Jabbari Johnson. He was breaking into cars and unbeknownst to
Speaker 1: the two police officers on Fountain Square, he was armed.
Speaker 1: He comes out of the Taste about after midnight as
Speaker 1: it's closing down. Please identify him through a ring camera
Speaker 1: as someone may have been breaking into cars. They asked him, hey,
Speaker 1: they didn't know who he was at the time, as hey, stop,
Speaker 1: we want to talk with it. He took off like
Speaker 1: a jackrab but a cop about fifty yards away pulled
Speaker 1: out his taser to stop him from running. But unbeknownst
Speaker 1: to them, as he was pulling out his taser. Jabari
Speaker 1: Johnson was reaching for a gun in the waist and
Speaker 1: his waistband and the cop didn't really know that. And
Speaker 1: fortunately the barbs hit the body of Jabari Johnson and
Speaker 1: he had the effect. And he then the gun that
Speaker 1: he was going to use to kill two police officers
Speaker 1: on Fountain Square after the taste kind of hit the
Speaker 1: pavement and the officer pulled out a taser thinking it
Speaker 1: was a taser needed. He should have pulled out his gun,
Speaker 1: but he didn't know he was armed. Now, the Ryan
Speaker 1: Hinton situation, he was clearly armed and it appears unlikely
Speaker 1: according to the video. You can prove one way or
Speaker 1: another he pointed the gun at the cop. Is it
Speaker 1: critical irrespective of Ryan Hinton, if someone is in possession
Speaker 1: of a gun in his hand, do you have to
Speaker 1: wait until he points it at you to respond? No.
Speaker 2: I mean to me, if you've got a person armed
Speaker 2: with a gun, and in this particular case, I know
Speaker 2: the person was out of view of the one officer,
Speaker 2: he's in the view of another officer and a brother
Speaker 2: officerer is yelling gun, gun. That's telling me that this
Speaker 2: guy has a gun that's visible and it's a threat.
Speaker 2: So to me, no, you don't. Again, you wait that
Speaker 2: split second for him to point the gun at you,
Speaker 2: and he might shoot before you can. So it's a
Speaker 2: lot to ask again of a police officer who will
Speaker 2: put into these situations to be perfect. You know, you
Speaker 2: can take the video and flow motion and you can
Speaker 2: do the Monday Morning quarterback, but that's not the luxury
Speaker 2: the officer has on the seat. He's got to make
Speaker 2: that split second decision. And the burden is basically, was
Speaker 2: the officer justified in using deadly force to protect himself
Speaker 2: or the public. That's basically what a jury is told
Speaker 2: in those kind of situations, and it's an objective test.
Speaker 2: But again, you can't Monday Morning quarterback these things. You've
Speaker 2: got to put yourself in his shoes what he was
Speaker 2: facing at the time.
Speaker 1: Now Monday money quarterbacking. I'm holding a statement issued by
Speaker 1: the City of Cincinnati here, and it says that one
Speaker 1: of the suspects pulled a semi automatic handgun and pointed
Speaker 1: it at an officer. If the video is incorrect, a
Speaker 1: video cannot be incorrect. It is what it is. But
Speaker 1: said the officer fired his weapon, hitting the suspect. The
Speaker 1: arm suspect is to seize. No officer were injured, and
Speaker 1: Chief Police Teresa Thiji, some have said she made a
Speaker 1: tactical air. The day after the shooting, she held a
Speaker 1: news conference and said that the gun was pointed at
Speaker 1: the officer, that he was shot in the chest and
Speaker 1: the bullet went out his back and in reality according
Speaker 1: to the coroner's office, Mark Pete Meyer forty five years
Speaker 1: in the prosecutor's office according to the coroner, and I
Speaker 1: think last me some Marco is about the best there
Speaker 1: is that the kill shot went about four inches below
Speaker 1: his left arm, put exit at the front of his chest.
Speaker 1: Is the fact, assuming the chief of police made a
Speaker 1: misstatement of fact, the reality might have been different. Is
Speaker 1: that critical As far as indicting a police officer, I.
Speaker 2: Don't believe so. And against the perception of the officer,
Speaker 2: it is a split second thing. And again the fact
Speaker 2: that another officer is yowing to.
Speaker 1: Him gun gun.
Speaker 2: It's that are increased awareness and as soon as you
Speaker 2: see this person, you know in your mind you may
Speaker 2: believe it is pointed at you or it's about to
Speaker 2: be pointed at you, but it's you don't have to wait.
Speaker 2: You don't have to put yourself in harm's way before
Speaker 2: you defend yourself. That's the way we would look at
Speaker 2: those kind of cases again.
Speaker 1: And I look at the cases, and there was two
Speaker 1: in Nashville. There was two cops in and around Columbus
Speaker 1: that had a fleeing suspect and they didn't pull out
Speaker 1: their weapons immediately. And he's running away, and he's running away,
Speaker 1: but he reaches with his right hand under his left
Speaker 1: armpit and fire shots out the cops and hits two
Speaker 1: of them. They go down, and one of the officers
Speaker 1: was able to return fire, shooting the assailant who was
Speaker 1: running away. That was identical to Ryan Hinton. Situation identical,
Speaker 1: and you would not even think about indicting the police
Speaker 1: officers who survived the shooting, even though they did not know.
Speaker 1: They did not know he had a gun until he
Speaker 1: fired it. They just went to a scene and the
Speaker 1: guy's running away and then they get shot, then they respond.
Speaker 1: That's how close. Now for the police officer in Cincinnati
Speaker 1: directly involved, the last thirty days has been hell for
Speaker 1: him because I would think he's worried about getting indicted.
Speaker 1: He's worried about his life, his work life, being over
Speaker 1: as we know it. And I had on Connie Pilich
Speaker 1: about two or three weeks ago and on a Friday,
Speaker 1: she told me, this was like ten days after the
Speaker 1: event took place, that she had seen no evidence to
Speaker 1: indicate that any police officer committed a crime. And that's
Speaker 1: what she said. And I had on the corner thereafter
Speaker 1: who said that the kill shot came from under the armpit. Now,
Speaker 1: there was a bullet that went into his body and
Speaker 1: lodged in the back of his neck, but she said
Speaker 1: that wasn't that wasn't an entry room in the back,
Speaker 1: and that she refused to say he was shot in
Speaker 1: the back, which is what the activists are saying. And
Speaker 1: so lastly I'll ask you this, Mark Pete Meyer, if
Speaker 1: if this case is presented to the grand jury at
Speaker 1: this point, is grand jury subpoena is out but the
Speaker 1: grand jury's not heard the case. What's the differential between
Speaker 1: grand jury subpoena is being out and a grand jury
Speaker 1: convened to hear this case or those different things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, grand jury subpoena would be issued, maybe to the
Speaker 2: coroner's office to get all their records. That might be
Speaker 2: issued to Cincini police to get all the body camera
Speaker 2: footage so that Connie and the other people in the
Speaker 2: office kept guying, and Seth Tiger, maybe a Heidi Rosalie
Speaker 2: can look at the and Katie Burrows some of the
Speaker 2: key people there in Mark Tierney can look at all
Speaker 2: the evidence and then they will make a decision based
Speaker 2: on everything they've seen. Is this something they have to
Speaker 2: present to a brand jury. But again, I think they
Speaker 2: will look at it and everything I've seen so far
Speaker 2: that you know, Connie hasn't really changed the way she
Speaker 2: approaches these cases then any of the other prosecutors I
Speaker 2: worked for did. Is that you're going to, you know,
Speaker 2: do the right thing, and if there's not enough there
Speaker 2: to to adet or if you don't think there's enough
Speaker 2: there that you would want to actually try the case,
Speaker 2: then you don't present it. And if some people want
Speaker 2: to criticize you about it. I know Joe Dieters, you know,
Speaker 2: over the years to go out of criticism and he said, hey,
Speaker 2: if run against me in four years in you know,
Speaker 2: if you don't like the job I'm doing. And I
Speaker 2: think they're continuing that same tradition in the office today.
Speaker 1: And the standard of Connie Pillage is do I believe
Speaker 1: if I cause an indictment to be issued against this
Speaker 1: police officer in Cincinnati, do I believe I can get
Speaker 1: a conviction at trial? Is that the standard?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's I believe that that's a standard we use,
Speaker 2: and I believe she would use the same one. Is
Speaker 2: this something if the grand jury, you know, you can't
Speaker 2: present it to the grand jury and they indicted, and
Speaker 2: you come out and say, well, even though the grand
Speaker 2: jury indicted, I'm going to dismiss the case. That would
Speaker 2: be wrong. You have to live with their decisions. So
Speaker 2: to me, you would not present a case unless you're
Speaker 2: ready to go to court with it.
Speaker 1: Are you confident Connie Pillage will make the right decision?
Speaker 2: I am. Everything I've seen of what she's done so
Speaker 2: far in the office and the people she's put in
Speaker 2: place in the office, I believe she'll do the right thing.
Speaker 1: Mark Pete Maer, I trust you implicitly. Once again, thank
Speaker 1: you for your forty five years of service, beginning with
Speaker 1: Side Lease and ending with Connie Pillage. You've seen it all,
Speaker 1: You've done it all, and once again, thanks for coming
Speaker 1: on the Bill Cunningham Show. I say this quite often,
Speaker 1: but Mark Pete Meyer, You're a great American. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, Bill, goodbye.
Speaker 1: God bless you. Let's continue with more. There it is.
Speaker 1: And the only bad part as we sit here on
Speaker 1: what June the second, in the afternoon, is that this
Speaker 1: police officer is still held in abey and so let's
Speaker 1: continue with more. Bill Cunningham News next to Jerome of
Speaker 1: the Reds News Radio seven hundred WLW