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Speaker 1: to date on fifty five KRC eight oh five.
Speaker 2: If you're a fifty five KRC DE talk station, I'm
Speaker 2: very very happy Friday e to you. Of course that
Speaker 2: means Dave, are that Jay Rattle? If I heart media
Speaker 2: aviation experts coming up at bottom of the hour. Always
Speaker 2: love those conversations, Jay and I always love to talking
Speaker 2: with FOP President Ken Coverer. He is a head of
Speaker 2: the Cincinni Police Departments Union Chapter sixty nine. Welcome back, Cancober.
Speaker 2: It's pleasure to have you on the program again.
Speaker 1: Hey Brian, how are you? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: I'm doing really well. I guess I don't know if
Speaker 2: you've got a near full or people are supportive of
Speaker 2: what you said. I know you're I believe your word
Speaker 2: was frustrated or you believe it's frustrating that Donald Trump
Speaker 2: pardoned the pretty much all of the J six rioters.
Speaker 2: Can you explain how why it is you take that position,
Speaker 2: because you know, people look at Biden's pardons of you know,
Speaker 2: all kinds of criminals, of all sorts of sentence. If
Speaker 2: not pardons outright. He did it thousands of them before
Speaker 2: he left office. And I don't know if Donald Trump
Speaker 2: just felt he was obligated to pardon these folks. But
Speaker 2: I think many people in my listening the audience believe
Speaker 2: that while there were some violent people in there, and
Speaker 2: no one can excuse violence, most notably against police officers,
Speaker 2: but that a lot of them were being prosecuted or
Speaker 2: at least face prosecution for something as simple as walking
Speaker 2: through the capital doors and wandering around, which I think,
Speaker 2: under the circumstances, is a reasonable thing to do. The
Speaker 2: thing got out of hand, and I never was supportive
Speaker 2: of what was going on there. I want you to
Speaker 2: be very clear on that, and I do not support
Speaker 2: anyone being violent toward police officers. My sister was a
Speaker 2: retired police officer. I wouldn't want it happened to her.
Speaker 2: So what's your take on this, Ken.
Speaker 3: Well, And that's where I think you have some things
Speaker 3: that were said yesterday were completely misconstrued because I made
Speaker 3: it very very clear what I spoke about was people
Speaker 3: that assaulted police officers have no business being pardoned. The
Speaker 3: rest of them, that's their business, that's that's politics, that's
Speaker 3: things for them. What I focus on is law enforcement
Speaker 3: and those that were getting you know, hit over the
Speaker 3: head with metal bats and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those folks shouldn't be pardoned. The rest of them.
Speaker 3: You just walk through the capitol and you have what
Speaker 3: trespassing at best. Should they spend three and a half
Speaker 3: four years in prison? Absolutely not. But that's that's one
Speaker 3: of the things that I focused on yesterday. And like
Speaker 3: I said, maybe there was some some misconstruing of words
Speaker 3: that I said, but I focus narrowly on what the
Speaker 3: national FOP stance was, which was those that assaulted law
Speaker 3: enforcement officers that caused injuries.
Speaker 1: It's it's disappointing that they would be pardoned.
Speaker 3: The sweeping of just pardoning everybody, to me was frustrating
Speaker 3: primarily because you're talking.
Speaker 2: About all suits that were assaulted fair enough, and I
Speaker 2: think that adequately responds to it. And I share your
Speaker 2: position about no one who is violent toward a police
Speaker 2: officers should be let off. I have no problem with
Speaker 2: that because I think under any circumstance it is inappropriate.
Speaker 2: But you know, but the problem with this conversation because
Speaker 2: it causes and allows people to go off on a
Speaker 2: tangent and I've seen it mentioned. Of course, the Fox
Speaker 2: nineteen article which is the genesis of this mentioned CNN
Speaker 2: said it also led directly and indirectly to the deaths
Speaker 2: of four Trump supporters and five police officers. Well, if
Speaker 2: you look behind the veneer of that, yes, Officer sick
Speaker 2: Nick was struck by a fire extinguisher, but the medical
Speaker 2: examiner said he did not die from that. He died
Speaker 2: of a stroke after he went back to the building.
Speaker 2: He did not die of blunt force trauma. And the
Speaker 2: other four officers, sad as it may be, died of suicide,
Speaker 2: and their families claim it's because of the trauma they
Speaker 2: experienced having to deal with the Capitol Hill drunken fraternity party,
Speaker 2: and they some of them were injured. But again, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to excuse anybody being violence toward the police.
Speaker 2: But you know, Ken, you signed up for the job,
Speaker 2: you knew what you were in store for. And yeah,
Speaker 2: as a police officer, you might be in a situation
Speaker 2: where you got to deal with riot control.
Speaker 3: Oh, there's no doubt. I mean we've dealt with in
Speaker 3: our careers. We saw it in twenty twenty here, we
Speaker 3: saw it in two thousand and one. It is part
Speaker 3: of the job. Now, this is the hard part about policing,
Speaker 3: and you're right, we all signed up for it. Is
Speaker 3: sometimes police officers and certainly officers that have died, you know,
Speaker 3: whether it was directly related or not, become political pawns.
Speaker 3: And unfortunately, that's what's happened here as you have all
Speaker 3: these political sides going back and forth and they decide, well,
Speaker 3: you know what, let's try to exploit an officer who
Speaker 3: committed suicide and let's just say, well, it's because of this.
Speaker 3: And that's that's what's frustrating about this is, you know,
Speaker 3: this is all just some political nonsense going on on
Speaker 3: both sides, and cops end up getting stuck in the middle.
Speaker 3: And that's that's unfortunate that that's how it is, but
Speaker 3: it's a reality that we have to live with every day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know that there are line of duty
Speaker 2: benefits that are available. But my understanding is from the
Speaker 2: folks that did commit suicide trying to claim that the
Speaker 2: suicides were approximately caused by the riots, either the cases
Speaker 2: are still pending or some of them have been denied
Speaker 2: saying no, this is not related to the riots. It
Speaker 2: has no directques correlation no proximate causation ergo, no death
Speaker 2: benefits allowed. Do the CINCINNT Police Department enjoy line of
Speaker 2: duty benefits if they are injured or killed in the
Speaker 2: line of duty?
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, there's statewide benefits. There's also national benefits that
Speaker 3: officers get, like Sunny Kim's family he was murdered in
Speaker 3: the line of duty back in twenty fifteen. There are
Speaker 3: benefits that the family gets ensure to ensure that they're
Speaker 3: taken care of. But it is a fine line, especially
Speaker 3: when it's a death that occurs after the fact. You
Speaker 3: know it's off duty. And we had a friend of
Speaker 3: mine that was injured in the line of duty several
Speaker 3: years ago, about eighteen months later, he ends up passing away.
Speaker 3: You could probably draw that connection because he had a
Speaker 3: pretty severe.
Speaker 1: Injury, but there's no proof of it.
Speaker 3: You couldn't prove that this is exactly what it was
Speaker 3: related to, and therefore your family doesn't get benefits.
Speaker 2: Well, cann Of, you're missing my obligations to the police,
Speaker 2: which I thoroughly support. If I did point out how
Speaker 2: stressful the job is, I mean, I will never ever
Speaker 2: forget the level of stress my sister was under when
Speaker 2: she was working special crimes and had to deal with
Speaker 2: all those child molesters. I mean having to go in
Speaker 2: every day to the office and look at the horror
Speaker 2: that those perverts commit on children. I mean talk about
Speaker 2: a bubble burst and stress inducer.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's no doubt. You know.
Speaker 3: I spent four and a half years in our fugitive unit,
Speaker 3: and you know we would go looking for murders, rapists, robbers,
Speaker 3: all these people are shooting people. The ones that affected
Speaker 3: me the most, the hardest ones to go and arrest,
Speaker 3: or the pedophiles or the one you know, sex crimes
Speaker 3: against kids, of violence against these little kids. Those were
Speaker 3: the worst ones because that's the father and me the
Speaker 3: human and death wants to just take these people and
Speaker 3: just strangle them, but you can't. Those those were the
Speaker 3: by far the most difficult ones for me to deal with.
Speaker 2: I can imagine the other component to that. Then people
Speaker 2: cut off and might not think about It's why I
Speaker 2: bring it up. The purpose that you know are responsible
Speaker 2: for molesting children, maybe in the process of ongoing molestation.
Speaker 2: While you're busy doing the evidence gathering, you know that
Speaker 2: that is still going on or could be still going on,
Speaker 2: and you're sort of you can't do anything about it. God,
Speaker 2: that would just I couldn't sleep if I was if
Speaker 2: I was aware of that kind of thing and I
Speaker 2: was responsible for going after him.
Speaker 1: No, no, it was certainly.
Speaker 3: It's a frustrating thing to deal with, but you have
Speaker 3: to keep in the back of your mind that justice
Speaker 3: is going to be served and that we have a
Speaker 3: job to do. We have to be professional, regardless of
Speaker 3: the circumstances, regardless of our personal feelings.
Speaker 1: And we have a job to do.
Speaker 3: It is to go arrest these people, bring them to
Speaker 3: the investigators, let the investigators do their thing. That way,
Speaker 3: these people can spend the rest of their lives, hopefully
Speaker 3: under the prison.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and feeling the wrath of their fellow prisoners. Anyhow,
Speaker 2: real quick here, I saw that WCPO reported it may
Speaker 2: have been reported elsewhere. Response times are down in the
Speaker 2: city of Cincinnati about thirty seconds more calendar year over
Speaker 2: for the police to arrive. And I so people know
Speaker 2: the average response time over eight minutes compared to seven
Speaker 2: minutes and thirty seconds and twenty twenty three. Part of
Speaker 2: the problem the closing a district five. Do you agree
Speaker 2: with that?
Speaker 1: Well, there's no doubt.
Speaker 3: I mean, you look at the numbers and I went
Speaker 3: over on with WCPO yesterday. The districts that have the
Speaker 3: biggest response times were District three and District four, which
Speaker 3: are the ones that absorbed the lion's share of District
Speaker 3: five by its closing. And it's something that I hear
Speaker 3: from officers constantly. They're frustrated about. You know, it takes
Speaker 3: me this much longer to get to a radio run
Speaker 3: because I'm going from this beat and I'm covering an officer,
Speaker 3: you know, up in College Hill or up in Mount Area.
Speaker 3: It takes longer because the district's that much bigger, and
Speaker 3: it is certainly something that has been a source of
Speaker 3: frustration since it's closed.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess I have to ask, and I think
Speaker 2: I know the answer to this, Ken, what's the likelihood
Speaker 2: they're going to reopen a district?
Speaker 1: Be honest with you, I don't think it's very good.
Speaker 3: I think if they had the money for it, maybe,
Speaker 3: but of course you know they're they're going to say
Speaker 3: that they don't have the money for it, and it's
Speaker 3: something that it is frustrating. I think you look at
Speaker 3: the numbers and you see that it's a problem. But
Speaker 3: what are you going to do to fix it? And
Speaker 3: that's that's yet to be seen. I guess we'll I'll
Speaker 3: hold out hope that maybe they'll come to their senses
Speaker 3: and see that you know, we need to change this,
Speaker 3: but who knows.
Speaker 1: You just have to wait.
Speaker 2: It's called the allocation of scarce resources. And one of
Speaker 2: the most important things for a city to live, thrive,
Speaker 2: and survive is to have an efficient, good of well
Speaker 2: oiled machine in the police department. Safety is paramount for
Speaker 2: a city that wants to grow. And you know, we
Speaker 2: don't need a streetcar. What we need are enough officers
Speaker 2: to get to you if you are in peril or
Speaker 2: a crime is being committed in a very short period
Speaker 2: of time. And clearly that's not the direction we go
Speaker 2: when we shut down police districts.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: That's the other part too, is you know we're still
Speaker 3: one hundred and almost one hundred and forty officer a
Speaker 3: short Oh we keep on having recruit classes.
Speaker 1: We have one in now.
Speaker 3: But you have a recruit recruit class that graduates here
Speaker 3: in May has about forty one officers and we're going
Speaker 3: to lose.
Speaker 1: Probably sixty or seventy this year. Oh No, it's an
Speaker 1: uphill battle.
Speaker 2: We talk about recruit classes. The one thing everybody has
Speaker 2: to keep in mind, I guess, is the number of
Speaker 2: officers that are retiring. It happens every year, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it happens at a faster pace than other years. I
Speaker 2: get the impression from the officers that I know, and
Speaker 2: I won't name names, and I want to put you
Speaker 2: on the spot, but I get the impression morale isn't
Speaker 2: exactly high within the cincint Police Department right now.
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's just a challenge, it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're dealing with, you know, being short staffed
Speaker 3: all the time, You're dealing with the increased radio runs,
Speaker 3: increased violence, all those things come into play, you know,
Speaker 3: and we're going to get ready to go back into
Speaker 3: our events season where off days are going to be
Speaker 3: canceled constantly, and it's just it's frustrating. I think a
Speaker 3: lot of these things will be sold if we ever
Speaker 3: do get back to our full compliment. I just don't
Speaker 3: see it, you know, happening in the next five to
Speaker 3: ten years. As much as the city trying to hire people,
Speaker 3: you got to you gotta, you gotta make this job
Speaker 3: more attractive. You know, and until things turn around politically,
Speaker 3: you know, whether it's locally, state or nationally, which hopefully
Speaker 3: things will be on the on the uptick now, and
Speaker 3: you know, hopefully we'll be able to get more people
Speaker 3: in here.
Speaker 2: Amen to that, because that just adds to the already
Speaker 2: stressful reality of your lives, which that component doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be there. If we had appropriately funded in staff
Speaker 2: police force, you could at least take that element of
Speaker 2: stress out of your lives. Ken, Cober, appreciate you being
Speaker 2: on the program. FOP President, keep up the great work,
Speaker 2: and I appreciate you explaining what you had to say
Speaker 2: about the Jay sixers. I agree that violence against police
Speaker 2: officers should never be excused, and hopefully that would be
Speaker 2: the order of the day if it helps it all, Trump,
Speaker 2: pardon the former DC police officer that was convicted the
Speaker 2: death of the Andrews, the bad his name, convicted the
Speaker 2: conspiracy and obstruction of justice in connection with the It
Speaker 2: was a Trayvon Martin situation or something like that, but anyway,
Speaker 2: he believed he was wrongfully convicted, so at least he
Speaker 2: tried to make up a little bit with that one
Speaker 2: line of duty incident. Ken, I won't hold you on
Speaker 2: the spot on that one. But I do appreciate your
Speaker 2: time this morning, and I look forward to having you
Speaker 2: on the program.
Speaker 1: Down the road. All right, Thanks Brian, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: My pleasure coming up in eight eighteen fifty five KRCD
Speaker 2: talk station.
Speaker 1: Stick around.
Speaker 2: We got a little bit more time to talk. And then,
Speaker 2: of course I always look forward to Friday or Thursday,
Speaker 2: Friday Eve at a thirty because you get to talk
Speaker 2: to Jay Rat left a bunch of topics with Jay
Speaker 2: this morning, So please stick around fifty five car the
Speaker 2: talk station.
Speaker 1: Steve Air with USA and so