Speaker 1: My Billy Cunningham, the Great American. Welcome to this Friday
Speaker 1: afternoon in the Tri State rech Baseball get back out
Speaker 1: of tonight in New York against the Metropolitans. Coverage begins
Speaker 1: about six oh five tonight the last time. I'm doing
Speaker 1: my duty as a great American watching bright Barts and
Speaker 1: other left wing websites, and I'm getting text from friends
Speaker 1: of mine in Covington saying, you can't believe what's happening
Speaker 1: on the suspension bridge. And so I tried to get
Speaker 1: some video Facebook, et cetera. Couldn't locate a lot, and
Speaker 1: then I find out at ten o'clock news at all
Speaker 1: Hell broke loose there was a protest. There were two
Speaker 1: dueling protests yesterday. One was the July seventeenth issue relative
Speaker 1: to a twenty first relative to the death of John Lewis.
Speaker 1: The other one was the free the E Mom, Free
Speaker 1: the e Mom that's in the Butler County jail. And
Speaker 1: so at one point the one freeing the emon said,
Speaker 1: let's let the people of Kentucky know what our viewpoint is.
Speaker 1: So they marched from from the riverbanks in front of
Speaker 1: the suspension bridge, and they marched over the bridge in
Speaker 1: mass some one to two hundred people singing we shall overcome,
Speaker 1: mainly white old females who listen to NPR and a
Speaker 1: bunch of younger females with purple hair, and they discover
Speaker 1: that the laws in Covington shutting down public thoroughfares are
Speaker 1: not quite the same as shutting down thoroughfares in the
Speaker 1: city of Cincinnati. Joining you and I now is Rob Sanders,
Speaker 1: Kent County Prosecutor. First of all, if you can, Rob,
Speaker 1: tell us what happened last night about between eight and
Speaker 1: nine pm on the suspension bridge with these well intended
Speaker 1: NPR listeners.
Speaker 2: Willie, I think you said it best when you said
Speaker 2: all hell broke close, apparently because I don't know who
Speaker 2: this emam is. I don't know that he's ever even
Speaker 2: set foot in Kentucky, or what this protest about the
Speaker 2: Butler County Jail and our good friend Sheriff Jones out there,
Speaker 2: what that has to do with us on the south
Speaker 2: side of the river or the Covington riverfront, or the
Speaker 2: Covington police or anything that these protesters tried to involve
Speaker 2: in their demonstration. But what I do know is that
Speaker 2: they were blocking down or blocking all of the traffic
Speaker 2: lanes on the suspension bridge, which of course is a
Speaker 2: state route. It's Kentucky seventeen. It's a highly traveled roadway.
Speaker 2: This was not in the middle of the night, of
Speaker 2: the cover of darkness or anything like that. This is
Speaker 2: while people were up and about and still doing business
Speaker 2: and trying to get back and forth across the Ohio River,
Speaker 2: and here they're trying to shut it down, I guess
Speaker 2: is some form of civil disobedience. But part of the
Speaker 2: problem with civil disobedience is when you start breaking laws.
Speaker 2: At least in Kentucky, we enforce those laws. And so
Speaker 2: fifteen people, at least fifteen people that I'm aware of,
Speaker 2: were arrested and charged with an array of offenses for
Speaker 2: everything from assaulting police officers to criminal mischief, to trespass,
Speaker 2: to failure to disperse to rioting, which is a felony
Speaker 2: in Kentucky Willia. It carries a possible risen sentence of
Speaker 2: one to five years. And they sent me the arrest
Speaker 2: citations today. And I'm sure this will shock you, but
Speaker 2: out of the fifteen people that are charged with riot
Speaker 2: first degree felony, only thirteen, or I should say only
Speaker 2: two were from Kentucky. The other thirteen were from Ohio
Speaker 2: or Indiana. We've got one from Rising Sun, Indiana, twelve
Speaker 2: from Ohio, everywhere, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Cincinnati,
Speaker 2: a couple more Cincinnatis, Brooksville, Ohio, wherever that is, another Cincinnati,
Speaker 2: and Cleveland Heights, Ohio, which I assume is in Cleveland.
Speaker 3: But that's an awfully long way.
Speaker 2: You know, two people drive all the way down from
Speaker 2: Cleveland to Cincinnati just to come march around Covington and
Speaker 2: trying to shut down.
Speaker 3: Our bridges just to get arrested.
Speaker 2: It's a very expensive form of protests when you have
Speaker 2: to go out and hire yourself criminal defense attorneys to
Speaker 2: defend you on a felony riot charge and hope that
Speaker 2: they keep you out of prison. It seems to me
Speaker 2: that it would have been much more advisable to just
Speaker 2: hold the protest on the sidewalk him, march around, protest
Speaker 2: all you want, shout whatever it is you want, hold
Speaker 2: your signs, wave them around. That's fine, you can do
Speaker 2: all that stuff. We believe in the First Amendments, but
Speaker 2: we don't believe in shutting down bridges all.
Speaker 1: Right now, I understand from media accounts there were injuries
Speaker 1: to the police in northern Kentucky, which is a different
Speaker 1: part of the tri State than the city of Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: The idea of fighting with cops on bridges, it can
Speaker 1: be extremely dangerous. What damages injuries, if any, did the
Speaker 1: police suffer.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, Willie, I believe the injuries to the police officers
Speaker 2: were minor. I think we've got some cuts and bruises
Speaker 2: and scrapes. I do see some photographs of some bloody elbows,
Speaker 2: bloody knees, bloody hands, but minor injuries. Fortunately, I'm not
Speaker 2: aware of any offer or that was seriously injured, nor
Speaker 2: am I aware of any protester that was seriously injured.
Speaker 2: But you know, when you're doing this stuff on a bridge,
Speaker 2: it really raises the level or the intensity of the confrontation. Because,
Speaker 2: as you well know, as we've discussed many times, the
Speaker 2: only Covington police officer to die in the line of
Speaker 2: duty in my lifetime, thank god, there was only one.
Speaker 2: But the one was Michael Parton, who of course fell
Speaker 2: from a bridge to his death in January fourth, some
Speaker 2: twenty six years ago, I believe, but that's still fresh
Speaker 2: in the minds of I think all the police in
Speaker 2: northern Kentucky, and they're very aware of how dangerous it
Speaker 2: is to be pursuing criminals, are dealing with criminals, they're
Speaker 2: tussling or otherwise fighting with criminals on a bridge because
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know, if you watched the videos,
Speaker 2: some of those cops aren't that big. They're just they're not.
Speaker 2: They're doing a heck of a job dealing with some
Speaker 2: people that are much larger than they are. But some
Speaker 2: of these cops, you know, they got to be concerned
Speaker 2: about whether or not they're going to be tossed over
Speaker 2: the bridge. I know, I've seen video of at least
Speaker 2: one guy hugging the bridge rail for dear life, and
Speaker 2: the police are having to deal with him right there
Speaker 2: over top of the water. I know that there was
Speaker 2: police gear that went missing in the struggles. There were
Speaker 2: personal property of police officers, watches and things of that
Speaker 2: nature that were lost or damaged or destroyed.
Speaker 3: Some of that stuff is believed.
Speaker 2: To have fallen in the river during struggles with these protesters.
Speaker 2: You know, it's understandably a very tense situation for police
Speaker 2: officers when they're so many stories up above the Ohio River,
Speaker 2: and I don't think anybody can reasonably assume that they
Speaker 2: will survive a fall from that height, much less into
Speaker 2: the water. And there's no reason that anybody should be
Speaker 2: up there protesting, much less fighting with the police above
Speaker 2: the water. It seems I don't know what it is
Speaker 2: about that suspension bridge, Willie, but first we got people
Speaker 2: hanging banners from it and forcing our police and our
Speaker 2: firemen to go up there and take those down and
Speaker 2: deal with them. And now we got people, you know,
Speaker 2: wanting to engage in riots up there. So I've had
Speaker 2: enough with the bridges and the crimes on the bridges
Speaker 2: and people fighting with the police on the bridges. They
Speaker 2: need to find a better place to hold their protests,
Speaker 2: preferably on the north side of the.
Speaker 1: River, you know, Rob Sanders. On Channel five, they had
Speaker 1: this older white woman. She was in her seven is.
Speaker 1: She was skinny. Most of the protesters are morbidly obese,
Speaker 1: but that's a different issue. Looked like the marshmallow manner,
Speaker 1: and this one woman had to weigh three hundred pounds.
Speaker 1: But this particular one was saying, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: do anything wrong.
Speaker 4: I'm just exercising my rights and a coming to police
Speaker 4: officer picked me up and slammed me to the pavement,
Speaker 4: took away my dignity. And all I'm doing is trying
Speaker 4: to exercise my rights and coming to police wouldn't let
Speaker 4: me do it?
Speaker 1: What you're coming to her.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, she's in the middle of the road, Willie.
Speaker 2: You know, you have a right to protest, you have
Speaker 2: a right to freedom of speech, but you don't have
Speaker 2: a right to shut down our bridges. And that's everything
Speaker 2: that I've seen so far, at least started in the
Speaker 2: middle of the roadway with the Comington police trying to
Speaker 2: clear the roadway so that people can get.
Speaker 3: Across the bridges. It's dangerous.
Speaker 2: It's dangerous for the protesters, it's dangerous for the motorists,
Speaker 2: it's dangerous for the police.
Speaker 3: It's just not.
Speaker 2: Something that should have been happening in the first place.
Speaker 2: And so I'm disappointed that anybody felt it necessary to
Speaker 2: provoke this confrontation, which is what I believe these protesters
Speaker 2: were intentionally doing, is trying to provoke a confrontation with police.
Speaker 2: That's the only thing that can result from shutting down
Speaker 2: a bridge on a state route, and I think you
Speaker 2: would get the result no matter which bridge you try
Speaker 2: and shut down, but certainly one is highly traveled as
Speaker 2: the Suspension bridge with all those.
Speaker 3: Holes in it.
Speaker 2: You know, anybody that's walked across the river to go
Speaker 2: to the Reds game, or and go to the Bengals game,
Speaker 2: or coming back over to visit one of our fine
Speaker 2: establishments on the south side of the river, Willie, which
Speaker 2: I know you like to frequent and hang out at.
Speaker 3: Anybody who's walked.
Speaker 2: Across that bridge knows that there's all sorts of gaps
Speaker 2: and holes in that bridge. And then the last thing
Speaker 2: any police officer wants to be doing is rolling around
Speaker 2: in tussling with unruly and uncooperative disobeion the criminals up
Speaker 2: there not following police lawful orders to disperse and get
Speaker 2: out of the roadway.
Speaker 1: You know what happened. Lieutenant pack Cayton, who I know well,
Speaker 1: was on the air Channel nine last night saying, well,
Speaker 1: we've issued two or three paper citations and basically those
Speaker 1: are going to be dismissed. As soon as they get
Speaker 1: to a court in Hambling County, they'll be dismissed. The
Speaker 1: protesters have regularly gone to I seventy five in the
Speaker 1: city of Cincinnati to shut down I seventy five, and
Speaker 1: when that happens, guess what. Nothing happens. After the George
Speaker 1: Floyd riots, nothing happened. In twenty oh one, the riots,
Speaker 1: nothing happened. All the charges are dismissed. Do you look
Speaker 1: forward to dismissing the charges in Covington, Kentucky?
Speaker 3: No, Willie. You know it's funny.
Speaker 2: I've gotten the number of different emails already, mostly from
Speaker 2: news outlets, asking me if I plan to dismiss the charges,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, obviously, you folks don't pay much attention
Speaker 2: to crime in Kenton County because we're going to collect
Speaker 2: the evidence.
Speaker 3: We're going to review the evidence.
Speaker 2: I have over fifty eight body camera videos just from
Speaker 2: the Covington officers alone. William, that's before we start adding
Speaker 2: in all the other police agencies from Kenton and Campbell Counties.
Speaker 2: It responded, we pretty much stripped two counties of all
Speaker 2: of our police coverage for the all call of the
Speaker 2: officer needs assistants to get down to the bridge and
Speaker 2: help get this situation under control. It's a whole another
Speaker 2: issue about stripping police detective from other law abiding citizens
Speaker 2: all across two counties. But nevertheless, know we plan to
Speaker 2: collect the evidence, review all the body camera videos. If
Speaker 2: we have a case, we have charges that we can
Speaker 2: prove the criminal accident anyone committed, they will be prosecuted.
Speaker 2: It's how we do business over here. It's how I
Speaker 2: think every citizen has a right to expect that the
Speaker 2: government that they pay for through the tax dollars will
Speaker 2: conduct themselves and upholding the law and enforcing the law
Speaker 2: that has been.
Speaker 3: Duly passed by our legislatures.
Speaker 2: I don't know why people live in a community that
Speaker 2: would do anything else.
Speaker 1: Well, I look at the demographics. I look at the population.
Speaker 1: If you take Boone, Kenton, and Campbell County, the population
Speaker 1: is about a little less than three hundred thousand, which
Speaker 1: is the population of the city of Cincinnati, and Hamilton
Speaker 1: County is going to completely woke to the left. So
Speaker 1: you have three communities northern Kentucky about the size of
Speaker 1: the city. If you add in the communities in southeast
Speaker 1: Indiana and those that border Hamilton County, which would be
Speaker 1: Claremont County and Warren County. In Butler County, you have
Speaker 1: this little enclave in the middle where the law doesn't apply,
Speaker 1: in which there's lax law enforcement, we lease down the
Speaker 1: city streets, open air smoking, marijuana, non enforcement of curfew
Speaker 1: laws for teenagers, non enforcement of truancy laws. Twenty five
Speaker 1: percent of the kids at CPS don't show up for
Speaker 1: school on any particular day. So you have this one
Speaker 1: little island floating in the middle of a sea of red.
Speaker 1: And I can't think of another city in America where
Speaker 1: on one side of the river you have woke progressivism.
Speaker 1: You have in the city of Cincinnati, a sanctuary city
Speaker 1: in which the law doesn't apply, the police are demoralized,
Speaker 1: the school stink. In the city of Cincinnati, there's massive
Speaker 1: lawlessness ignored. And you go a quarter of a mile
Speaker 1: away the Ohio River, and all of a sudden you're
Speaker 1: in the land of Rob Sanders Kenton County. You're in
Speaker 1: the land of Butler County, or Claremont County or Warren County,
Speaker 1: David Foreignschell, or Southeast Indiana. God help you if you're
Speaker 1: caught with marijuana in Dearborn, Indiana. It's a serious matter.
Speaker 1: So what advice would you provide to the activists, to
Speaker 1: the progressives, to the city beat crowd, to the NPR crowd,
Speaker 1: to the Purple hair and nosering crowd. When it comes
Speaker 1: to committing crime, should you stay in the city of
Speaker 1: Cincinnati and not venture out?
Speaker 3: It surely seems like a good idea.
Speaker 2: Will you know, when you start across those bridges and
Speaker 2: you see the big sign and says welcome to the Bluegrass,
Speaker 2: they should know that. I don't even know that you
Speaker 2: caught the old fashioned way. We do things the common
Speaker 2: sense way. We just enforced the laws that we have
Speaker 2: on the books, and we expect everybody that's wandered into
Speaker 2: Artists State to do the same thing, to abide by
Speaker 2: those laws that are on the books. We're not asking
Speaker 2: anybody to do anything special except just behave yourselves. What
Speaker 2: they choose to do on the north side of the river,
Speaker 2: that's their business. But if once you come on the bridge,
Speaker 2: if you look down and you're over top the water,
Speaker 2: chances are you were now in Kentucky and you can
Speaker 2: count on being prosecuted for any criminal offense that you
Speaker 2: can fit commit. Novel concept, I'm sure. But you know
Speaker 2: one thing I will mention Willy that was really alarming
Speaker 2: about this is so this protest, from what I'm told,
Speaker 2: started with a much smaller group of people coming across
Speaker 2: the bridge and shutting the bridge down.
Speaker 3: And when the.
Speaker 2: Police showed up to tell them to get on the sidewalk,
Speaker 2: because they weren't there to arrest everybody right off the bat,
Speaker 2: they were there to tell them to get on the sidewalk,
Speaker 2: that group of people people started radioing back to a
Speaker 2: larger group still on the Cincinnati side and radio to
Speaker 2: them and say, you know, I guess we've done it,
Speaker 2: or the police are here, that's what we're looking for.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it's like, hey, the police are here.
Speaker 2: So instead of all those people going, well, I'm not
Speaker 2: going over there because they've already got the police to
Speaker 2: show up and so I don't want any part of
Speaker 2: that now, they came running in and created a much
Speaker 2: bigger problem, adding to the problem with dozens, if not
Speaker 2: hundreds of more people on the bridge blocking the trafficking,
Speaker 2: and only escalated the situation. But the coordination between those
Speaker 2: people that claim that they're just exercising their rights to
Speaker 2: radio over to bring in more people to assist them
Speaker 2: and breaking the laws especially problematic, and I think that's
Speaker 2: probably a big contributing factor as to why the Comington
Speaker 2: police chose to go with a riot charge is because
Speaker 2: of that coordination. In Kentucky, it only takes five people
Speaker 2: to be involved in criminal conduct for it to be
Speaker 2: a riot. But when you have that coordination between dozens
Speaker 2: or hundreds of people breaking the law, that creates a
Speaker 2: very serious, very dangerous situation for police officers. You know,
Speaker 2: we trust them, we asked them, and we trust them
Speaker 2: to uphold the law, enforce and keep our community safe.
Speaker 3: You know, the kind of community that.
Speaker 2: We enjoy on the south side of the river, and
Speaker 2: when people put their lives at risk, we take that
Speaker 2: very seriously.
Speaker 1: And lastly, Rob Sanders, I would imagine the dozens of
Speaker 1: Covington and Kentucky police that came to assist offerser of
Speaker 1: needs assistants get here. Now, there were many communities in
Speaker 1: northern Kentucky left bear in which case law enforcement didn't exist.
Speaker 1: And I can specifically recall in the late nineteen nineties
Speaker 1: that the body of Officer Michael Parton was not located
Speaker 1: for many weeks because it was the river was very cold,
Speaker 1: almost in a frozen condition, and the sadness in northern
Speaker 1: Kentucky and elsewhere that this officer was pursuing someone who
Speaker 1: should not have been on the bridge, and that he
Speaker 1: flipped over and ended up in the river and died
Speaker 1: and his body wasn't located for a long period of time.
Speaker 1: Just exacerbate at the conflicts for someone who thinks this
Speaker 1: emom needs special protection and special protests. Do it in Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: the charges will be dismissed. You can walk on I
Speaker 1: seventy five with impunity, smoke your pot, do what you
Speaker 1: gotta do, do the wheelies around Fountain Square, no big deal.
Speaker 1: Do it in Covington doesn't apply. And I think the
Speaker 1: message has got to be sent to law enforcement in
Speaker 1: the surrounding counties will seriously maintain statutes and laws that
Speaker 1: are going to be and if these charges indicated, an
Speaker 1: indictment is necessary. These fifteen or so people are facing
Speaker 1: hard time in prison, not a paper charge dismissed by
Speaker 1: a liberal magistrate. Well, Rob Sanders, thank you. We'll see
Speaker 1: what happens down the road. Are these individuals out on bond,
Speaker 1: you know? Are they bonded out yet?
Speaker 2: Well, Willie, they all just appeared in our district court
Speaker 2: for arraignment at eight thirty this morning, and at that
Speaker 2: time the judge would have set bond.
Speaker 3: For each one of them.
Speaker 2: Each one of them's cases are individual and they get
Speaker 2: individual bond reviews, so every one of them's got a
Speaker 2: different bond amount. I'm going to wait probably a couple
Speaker 2: more hours here before I get on the jails website
Speaker 2: see how many of them actually we're able to post
Speaker 2: that bond. So right now, it's just I haven't taken
Speaker 2: the time to get on the website and look up
Speaker 2: all fifteen defendants to see who's in and who's out.
Speaker 2: But I suspect that there will probably be several who
Speaker 2: were unable to make bond, if any of them make
Speaker 2: bond at all.
Speaker 1: All right, good, well, the message is sent, do your
Speaker 1: crimes in Cincinnati, not much consequence. Do your crimes in Covington,
Speaker 1: A big consequence message has been sent. Hopefully the NPR crowd,
Speaker 1: the old white women from Hyde Park that want to
Speaker 1: feel as if their miserable lives have importance. Hopefully the
Speaker 1: message will be received. Commit your crimes in Cincinnati, don't
Speaker 1: commit them in Covington. My hometown. Rob Sanders, thank you
Speaker 1: very much for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Ron, my pleasure, WILLI and Hay about every
Speaker 2: police agency in northern Kentucky.
Speaker 3: Is hiring right now.
Speaker 2: So if any of those good officers on the north
Speaker 2: side of the river retired to work in someplace that
Speaker 2: just calls for written tickets and dismissed cases, come on
Speaker 2: over here, put your applications in.
Speaker 3: We'd be happy to have more good officers.
Speaker 1: God bless America. Rob Sanders, thank you very much. Let's
Speaker 1: continue with more. There's a lot of new sheriff in town.
Speaker 1: It's the old sheriff. The idea that a liberal, progressive
Speaker 1: woke sanctuary city. It's a quarter of a mile from
Speaker 1: law enforcement across the river. You're warned. Bill Cunningham, News
Speaker 1: Radio seven hundred WLW