Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
John nine says, we have a cloudy day to day.
I have twenty two and be careful on the roads.
Dating the obvious if you're out there, but if you
plan on going out and find some slick spots, so
please watch it. Overnight low of thirteen with clouds high
thirty Tomorrow. Flood warning ends at one thirty and we'll
see some sun clouds every night down to thirteen and
a clear day on Saturday with a high thirty seven
fourteen degrees.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Right now, traffic time.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
From you see up traffic center and do you see health.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
You'll find comprehensive care that's so personal and make sure
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more at you sehealth dot com. We'rell morning on seventy
five southbound shut down with traffic being diverted off at
the paddock.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
HiT's over a half hour to lay out of Lackland.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Northbound seventy five lane's blocked with an accident above seventy four.
Chuck Ingram on fifty five KRCEE Deep Talk Station.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Six thirty.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Happy Thursday, Brian Thomas always interested and happy when FOP
president Ken Kober joins the program Fraternal Order of Peace
Chapter sixty nine, representing the CINCINNTI Police Department. But talk
about today what they and the firefighters are concerned about,
which is the Cincinnati What is the Community Responder Program? Ken,
welcome back to the Morning Show. Good to hear from you.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Thank good morning, Brian, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
All right, let's start with what is the Community Responder Program?
This is something set up by city hall or by
the by city council.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
So this program is actually developed by the communications director
emergency communications director, and the idea behind it is to
basically take civilians that are going to answer calls for
service instead of having things that traditionally the police do,
like calls.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
In the nine to one one.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Yeah, So when the call comes in from nine to
one one, then the communications director has instructed the dispatchers
to instead of dispatching the police, they're going to dispatch
the civilians instead of the police for certain runs.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Well, that sounds like it might come with inherent dangers
for people who are not trained law enforcement professionals.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
It's been proven already to be rather disastrous. Oh really,
especially for the citizens.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah yeah, okay, and these are employees of the city
that are doing this.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Okay, So paid employees from the city are responding to
what otherwise would have been a traditional police nine to
one to one response. He said, it's been a disaster.
Can you give my listeners and me an illustration and
maybe where something went sort of sideways on the citizen.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
Sure. So one of the things that they're doing is
they're having them respond to auto accidents and instead of
their theory was well, we're going to lighten the load
on the police. However, what they're doing is they're showing
up going to a crash scene and telling them well,
if you want to report, just go to the police district.
But what we've seen so far is happening. Two particular
(03:02):
egregious instances is where they showed up a woman who
was visibly pregnant, I think she was like eight months pregnant,
was injured in an auto accident, and instead of calling
for an ambulance, he said, we'll just go to the
police district and have a police report fouled up, that's
what you want to do. So you have an injured
pregnant woman shows up at the police district and they're like,
what is this Another one was a guy shows up
(03:26):
at the district So, yeah, these civilian people told us
to just come here and follow this police report. He goes,
but I'm kind of confused because the woman that.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Hit me was visibly drunk. There you go, they let
her drive away.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Just getting ready to ask that it had been trained
in recognizing impaired driving. Do they know what to look for?
Can they administer the traditional test to determine whether someone
is impaired behind the wheel or are they just going
to overlook something like that that's concerning.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Well, sure it is.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Yeah, I mean the liability that the city assuming by
having one of their employees just let somebody that either
didn't recognize it or is still equipped to recognize these
kind of things, they let them.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Drive away, drive away.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Oh my word.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Well, I guess I got a little burning question go
on in the back of my head here. If you
had a full contingent of police officers, in other words,
if you weren't behind in numbers by how many of
you down now like three hundred or so, Now we're
down one hundred and forty, one hundred and forty. Well,
if you had those one hundred and forty officers now
working and UH with the police with actively with the
(04:34):
police department. Would this would these community responders even be necessary?
I mean, aren't they supposed to? And this sounds like
a band aid solution they came up with to avoid
hiring more police officers.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
That's exactly what we suspect is going on.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Well, and that's where your union contract comes in, right.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
Well, sure, you know the collective bargaining agreement that we
have says that the work that is traditionally of a
if they want someone else to do that work, then
it has to be negotiated. So I sent a season
desist order last August when they came up with this
plan and told them that if this is something that
you want to do, you must first negotiate it with
the FOP. They just turned a blind eye to it
(05:17):
once they started hiring people. Is when we decided to
take action and we filed an unfair labor practice.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
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Acre's You're nine first morning with a forecasts slick out
there to be real careful.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Today's side just twenty two degrees.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And it'll be cloudy all day today. If you've flirted,
maybe this morning overnight time to thirteen with clouds. I
have thirty tomorrow with some sun and the flood warning
ending at one thirty pm over nineteen to thirteen with
clouds and a clear Saturday Saturday going up to thirty
seven degrees.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Right now it's fifteen degrees in time for traffic.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
From the UCLP Traffic Center. And do you see health.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
You'll find comprehensive care that's so personal and make sure
best tomorrow possible. That's boundless care for better outcomes. Expect
more at youseehealth dot com. We'rell morning on seventy five
southbound shutdown with traffic being diverted off at Paddock. HiT's
over a half hour delay out of Lachlan northbound seventy five.
Let lane's blocked with an accident above seventy four. Chuck
(07:39):
Ingram on fifty five KRSNE theme talk Station.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Six thirty eighth about krc Detalk station Brian Thomas with
FOP President Kencobe. We're talking about this greater since a
community responder program where they sends civilians out on what
otherwise we'd be normally a police run after someone calls
in the complaint. Really troubled by that whole automobile accident
thing because you anticipated exactly where I was going, because
(08:05):
it could be an ov I situation. Are these are
these citizen responders? Are they trained on any level?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Ken?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Do you know?
Speaker 5 (08:15):
So? They're given some kind of bare bones training. I
think the training was like six weeks total to cover
a myriad of things. But one thing that they're not
equipped to handle is defending themselves if they get into
a rather violent situation.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
Across the country, we hear all the time about officers
that show up to a minor auto accent they get ambushed.
I was gonna say, yeah, means to offend themselves.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You Quite often situations can devolve from the mundane to
the violent. I mean, people can just kind of lose
their wits on a moment's notice. So so these citizen
responders are themselves maybe in peril. Let me ask you this.
Do they wear body cameras ken.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
No, of course not.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
Why would they need to do that. That's just reserved
for the police.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Do they have radios so they can call in for
backup with more citizens to show up if there's a problem.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
Right exactly. And that's the other part of this. If
they get into a situation that they're ill equipped to
handle and they come over screaming on the radio. Now
you have the police that are going to be driving
lights and sirens at high speech, trying to get there
to protect somebody that has no way to protect themselves,
and it's only putting the police in even more danger.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
I guess I have to ask this sort of out loud.
Did the city ever contemplate any of these problems when
they shove this thing through? Do they consult with the
police department? And I know this supplies to the firefighters
because the firefighters union apparently is a little miffed about
this as well.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Well.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
I can only assume that they did not or they
just didn't care what the response was.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
But you're right.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
I mean that's the same way the fire department now
following suit with the FOP, and they're following unfair labor
practice themselves.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Do you have any idea how much these citizen responders
are paid.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
I looked at I think their average salary is somewhere
between sixty and ninety thousand a year.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Holy crap, I mean that's you're in You're in police
wage territory, there are you not?
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Yeah, they're getting close. And this is the this is
the biggest problem aside from the safety aspect. They're really
not lightening the load for the police because they show
up to an auto accident, they don't investigate it, and
they look at the people that are involved and go, hey,
just show up at the district. But here's the problem.
So you have two people that are involved in an
auto accident, they say, hey, just show up, you go
(10:49):
to your local police district finer report. They're only telling
one person that they need to go, which, of course
then only one person shows up. And you know, I
got one side of the story. You don't have the
other person's information. But let me just say for a
second and that they actually tell both people to go
to a police district. And you have one person that
lives on the west side, they go to District three.
You have a person that lives on the east side
and they go to District two. How do you merge
(11:11):
those police reports and the answers You can't. Well, so
you have two different police reports going on, and you
know the same, the facts are different. It's an absolute
disservice to the people that live, work, and play in
Cincinnati that they have to even deal with this kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Well do they issue citations.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
No, they don't even investigate the crash. They just show
up and say.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Oh, that's a pretty valuable piece of information for someone
who's going to make an insurance claim that guy hit me,
he owes me and needs to pay me back for
my out of pocket responsibilities under my autobile insurance. Or
if you don't have any for the damage done by
the accident, Oh my god, my neck hurts, I've got
medical bills. Now, all these things become critical questions in
(11:58):
an automobile accident, even if it doesn't involve into violence
and they're not in a position to issue a citation.
Or make a determination as the responsibility. Oh great, then
you're never going to get one. Sure, this is the
most ill conceit. Well, I can't say I've ever heard of,
because we all know things from government. We can go
(12:19):
down and spend hours and hours talking about stupidity.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
You know, And I guess.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
One of them is going to get hurt someday too,
and that's going to be a real problem.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
There's no doubt.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
Yeah, that's that's so me looking at us from the
human side of this. You're notwithstanding the legal side, They're
going to get somebody hurt. They're going to get somebody killed,
whether it's a citizen, whether it's one of these community responders.
And that's just something that it's going to happen. It's inevitable.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
That's a shame.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Now, where is it in terms of I know, you
send a cease and desist order to stop this program
from going through. It went through anyway, and I guess
they're actively using this program right now.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
It's correct.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So what's the next step for the union for the
Police and Firefighters Union in this process?
Speaker 5 (13:07):
So we filed the unfair labor practice with the State
Employment Relations Board. They've investigated it, and they've ordered us
to go to mediation. So next month I'll be going
up to Columbus and We'll be trying to mediate the situation.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
All right.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Well, and if the mediation doesn't work, because you're not
bound by any mediation unless you both mutually agreed to
resolve it under the terms of the mediation, do you
go to arbitration then or do you end up in
front of a judge?
Speaker 5 (13:38):
Well, to go back to the state Employment Relations Board
for them to investigate further and decide how they wanted
to get it resolved.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
All right, Well, I hope they resolved. To point out
to the city since saying this sounds like a really
bad idea. Do you know where the funds came from
to hire these people? This is just comes out of
the city, the general fund. All right.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
They've got some really.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Nice vehicles too. I mean, we can't get we can't
get new police cars. But yeah, they've got an electric Mustang.
They've got some nice Chevy Silverados. And that's certainly a
little bit of reb on the police as well as
they are driving cars that they have two hundred and
fifty thousand miles on them and they're going but these
people have brand new cars.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
That's kind of neat.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, and do you know how many of them there
are before we part company today, Ken.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
I think there's like a half dozen so far.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
So far?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, so far?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Well, this just sounds like stupid all across it. And
I hope for some reason this does violate the terms
of your collective bargaining agreement, so we can put it
into this program and maybe save lives and also help
people resolve their insurance claims during automobile accidents. Ken, I
feel for you, man, keep up the great work you're
doing on behalf of the police department, and God bless
(14:57):
all of the members of the Cincinnati Police Department and
for what you do each and every day.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
Sure well, thanks, Brian, appreciate you having me.
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