January 16, 2026 • 19 mins
- In this episode, we engage with Cory Bowman, a former mayoral candidate for Cincinnati, discussing the recent election results and the ongoing issues facing the city. We delve into the low voter turnout and the implications of the election outcomes, particularly regarding public safety and city management. Cory shares personal stories, including the tragic shooting of an 11-year-old girl, which highlights the urgent need for better public safety measures and community engagement. He emphasizes the importance of accountability among city leaders and the necessity of bridging the gap between the police and the community they serve.
- The conversation also touches on the challenges within the Cincinnati Police Department, including staffing shortages and the need for better support from city officials. Cory advocates for a more proactive approach to public safety, suggesting that simply increasing funding is not enough. Instead, he calls for a comprehensive reevaluation of how public safety funds are allocated, ensuring that they directly benefit the community. The episode concludes with a call to action for citizens to hold their leaders accountable and to remain engaged in local governance, especially in the wake of the recent election.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Corey came into Stios on break post election. Yes, Corey
Bowman ran from mayor of the City of Cincinnata. Notice
the color charted electoral map we keep permanently posted here
on the morning show. Strekker put that up after the
Quire produced it. So we see the red areas where
people were smart enough to vote for you, Corey Bowman.
And then we have the color coded chart showing the
(00:32):
percentage of voters that went pervoll and the current makeup
of Cincinni City Council, which is only one member different
than it was prior to the election. And it's all
you know, pervall fifty to seventy, pro ball seventy one
to eighty four, and per ball eighty five to one hundred. This,
of course, based upon the reality of the last fall
election where only one out of twenty five registered voters
or people actually showed up to vote. It's insane, Corey.
(00:54):
I don't get it. I don't understand people's lack of
interest or they're fair to pay attention to the problems
that we all knew about going into the election. And
here we are with the exact same cast of characters,
and what unfolds in the aftermath is more information about
how poorly run the city's been up up to the election.
If we had all this information, like the firing of
police Chief Thiji, the camera installation that was promised for
(01:16):
years and denied, on and on and on like these
are reflections of mismanagement, I mean, plain and simple. The
whole iris rolling thing floating around the background that has
just got everybody like, what in the hell is this
all about? It could have been different, but it wasn't.
So you're citizen Corey Bowman, but you're still a West
End resident, correct, Yes, sir?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, first off, thank you so much for having me.
Good good morning, everybody for listening everything. It's going to
be a great day today. But yeah, Brian, first off,
you know, thank you so much for the entire year
that we were running that campaign that you consistently had
us on talking about the issues and you know, like
what you said, you know, when it comes to the
management of the city, that's what we ran the race on.
(01:56):
And I think that even after the election, even though
it's not the results that we wanted to see, you know,
in the words of one of my friends, Christopher Smithman,
elections have consequences elections have consequences, and I think that
one of the most important things we can continue to
do is to keep these issues at the forefront of
the conversation. You know, I made a post a while
back go something that hit me pretty close to home,
(02:19):
was that one of our church members, her granddaughter was
Queen Irie, the eleven year old girl that got shot down.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
So what happened was is that her grandmother is a
member of our church. The shooting happened at Laurel Park,
which is about six blocks away from our church, right
across the street from where they live, and the little
girl two years prior, we had actually gotten a chance
to pray with her at an outreach that we had
at that park, at the very place where she tragically
got her life taken away.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You had to have a vigil there because of the
other eleven year old that got killed there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, so two years before it was Dominic Davis, and
these are issues that we've seen throughout the city. And
so I made a post just kind of pleading to
the leaders at city Hall, just saying, this is an
election here. I'm not making this post for another run
or another race. I'm making this post as a citizen,
as a pastor, as a business owner, as somebody member
of their community. And the thing is that we've got
(03:15):
to do better. We've got to do better when it
comes to public safety. And I'll just throw this in
there that the answer to that is not just throwing
more money at it.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, no question about it. Although money is necessary to
buy things like cameras, I think we all can probably
come to a reasonable conclusion that, let's say, since the
first eleven year old was shot in the park and
the promise was made the cameras would be installed, and
I can't. We can acknowledge the cameras don't prevent crime,
they deter it. I use the analogy again, burglars know
(03:47):
a house with a dog versus a house with no dog.
They go to the house with no dog because who
wants to take that chance? Cameras are up. It's like
having a cop there. Do you want to take a
chance where they can identify you even if you have
a mask on. They can identify people based up on
their height and their gate and their weight. With cameras,
they're wonderful evidentiary tools to be used in finding a
guy that committed crime, But in front of that is
(04:09):
the guy that's going to commit the crime can look
up or know there's cameras in this area. I'm gonna
move to an area where there's no cameras. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well also too, I mean the issues that we talked
about the entire year, right when it comes to public safety,
this isn't rocket science. You know. The crime has been
a problem since canaan Able, right, and there has been
solutions to that, you know, in our city. I think
one of the biggest things that we were pushing that
we still push right now is I mean, number one,
you're twenty percent understaffed as a police department. Any organization,
(04:38):
any company, any type of entity that is twenty percent
understaffed is not going to operate to the fullest of
its ability. We've got to increase lateral hiring. We've got
to make sure that those complement levels are up. And
then also we've got to put pressure on the judges
to hold criminals accountable because I talk with the people
in the community. These criminals do not paint a right
(05:00):
picture of the entire community.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
It's a very small amount of people that aren't held accountable,
and we've got to change that from the judicial system,
and then finally you got to bridge that gap between
the police officers and the community they serves. One way
to do that is to enforce low level crimes de
escalation tactics and encourage your officers to be more involved
in situations rather than just only swoop in at the
(05:23):
worst case scenario.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, along those lines, I think of the whole you know,
the romantic notion of the beat cop. Everybody knows them,
you know, I think of the I can't remember what
it was the name of the program was, but swinging
the baton, you know, the night stick walking down the
street and saying hello to.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, the Pleasantville type of the Andy Griffin.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And doors at night to make sure they're locked. I mean,
it's all a romantic notion, but it does suggest that
it's a friendly relationship, a familiar relationship with the people
who the officers are patrolling in that neighborhood, and that
connection sort of gives people the positive I to the police.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
You know what's funny is that I was working at
my coffee shop. I had to cover for one of
my baristas, and as I'm in there, you know, that's
kind of my opportunity to tell people, Hey, this is
a good chance to meet me if you want to,
you know, schedule meeting or whatever.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I'm just going to be serving customers.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
So as I'm in there, gentlemen, comes in a very
prominent businessman in the city, and over the course of
thirty minutes of him in there, every customer came in.
I probably gave a like ten second hug to every
single one of them, saying, Hi, how's your family, how's
this And he just looked at me and said, well,
you're like Andy Griffith right now, what the heck is
going on in the West End right now? But then
(06:35):
if it's okay, I want to tell a story about
what happened that night with the eleven year old getting shot,
because we were with the family that night, and this
was a kind of a revelation that I had because
you know, the first radio interview I did, somebody said, well,
this is really personal for you now, and I said, well,
this was always personal to me, even throughout the race,
(06:56):
because it wasn't just about being mayor of Cincinnati. That night,
I got the call from the grandmother. Me and my
wife were about to go to Graters with our kids,
and we go right to Cincinnati Children's and we were
with the family during some of the most horrific scenes
that you would ever see when it comes to mourning
and the loss of a loved one, from the mother,
from the father, and from all the cousins, young cousins.
(07:19):
Seeing the whole yeah, and seeing the whole process, from
the detectives, from the corner, from all these different processes,
from how they're treated by social workers, all sorts of
things going on, and then when they finally get escorted
out at the end of the night, right, and it
wasn't done rightly at all. When the whole family gets
escorted out, we go to the place where little Queen
(07:40):
Eyrie was shot and it's at Laurel Park. It's right
across the street from the grandmother's house. So we're there
that night. I was there until past midnight. We got,
you know, some pizzas delivered to the family. When something
like that happens, the whole community comes out. Well, this
is something that struck me, right, is that I'm out
there just you know, kind of praying with people, talk
with people about the little girl. And we're in the
(08:02):
middle of the park. Well, there's some cars that are
pulling by that are fairly driving fairly slow, right, and
they've got ten windows. I mean, everybody's got ten windows now.
But what happened was I called some contacts with the
police department. I said, get some cruisers down here if
you can, to Laurel Park to protect the family because
they're out in the park their morning. I mean, we're
(08:23):
in the dirt where you can find blood where the
girl was, right. So then the cop cars pull up
and the whole community at first freaks out.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And they think they're responding.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
They think they're responding, right, and they think that they're
there to try to clear them out. I raise up
my hands and I say, no, no, no, no, no,
that's me. Those officers are here for you, for your protection,
to protect you. And then something just happened to where
they realized that they could actually be on their side, right.
And I'm sitting there thinking, isn't this what elected officials
(08:55):
should be doing. Isn't this what leaders in the city
should be doing, bridging that gap between the community and
the police officers that want to protect and serve them.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
And that's the last thing on the provol administration agenda.
Corey Bowman, you know, yeah, it was Aftab at that meet.
I know the answer is no. It's a rhetorical question
from Joe Strecker, but no, Aftab pro Voll wasn't at
the park for your vigil. He hasn't never showed up there, has.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
He to my knowledge, And you know, I like to
give credit. Where's credit, dude? To my knowledge, he did
through a detective try to reach out to the family
as well, and so I mean that's, you know, something
that I think is needed as well, just leadership reaching out.
I know there was a couple city council members that
were there at the balloon release, so but this is
something that we always have to put the forefront. Accountability,
(09:40):
accountability to accountability. If we're if you've got that large
amount of people proportion wise that are voting for these
people in city hall, well then it is your job
to keep them accountable and make sure that they're doing
the job of keeping the city safe, clean and protected.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Corey Bowman will return. We got another second with him
before we get to the bottom of the ar with
Jack Windsor, editor in chief the Isle Press Network and
Neil Windsor Report, which you can find on zoom on
Ice in Ohio as well as propertytech is that's the bottom
of the hour. One more with Corey after these brief words.
(10:19):
Eight eighteen Here fifty five KRCD talk station post election
coverage here with Corey Bowman from since formerly running for
mayor of the City of Cincinnati. He's still a resident
of the West End. Of course, his church is there,
his business with King's Arms Coffee, right, yeah, sort of
shout out, that's free plug for you. Show up there.
A lot of people do. I stay in touch with
(10:40):
the neighborhood. Get yourself a good cup of coffee, and
support Corey Budma, which I encourage you doing. Now. You
mentioned earlier lateral hires, and I know that. See I
was gonna say your campaign in running for mayor had
a couple of really positive results the mayor. After that part,
Volt was denying that there was any crime to even
notice in the City of Cincinnati. I know I'm boiling
(11:02):
it down to its minimalist terms, but every time someone
got hurt or shot or killed, there's nothing to see.
It's just an you know, the violent crimes down We
kept hearing down, down, down, down, down. Don't believe your eyes,
don't believe the news. Just believe me and what I'm
telling you kind of a marketing plan. None of them
ever supported the police. They were all part of many
of them part of the defund the police movement. That
(11:22):
was all the rage Black Lives Matter was going down,
and we saw what happened to so many cities on that.
So your campaign, though, elevated crime to the attention of
the voting public. Coupled with Sarah Herringer, whose husband murdered
in her over the wrong department, I don't think. I
don't think Mayor I have to have Pearl will ever
bother to pick up a phone to call her. But whatever,
(11:44):
you had the violent beat down, most notably the issue
involving Holly, who was able to stop the fight by
stopping a cold punch with her face, knocking her out
and causing serious bodily damage, and the attention that that
guy things are out of control in downtown that would
force the administration, because of you and your pro police campaign,
(12:06):
to rise to the challenge. We're gonna do this, We're
addressing crime. We're gonna throw five point four million dollars.
We're gonna put some cameras over on the West end,
which had been promised for a couple of years. We're
gonna hire laterally, we're gonna add additional police officers to
fill the contingent of police officers on the force, which
is about two hundred down. There's an idea, but then
(12:27):
when they implement it, they open thirty spots up And
Ken Cobra, FLP president told me seven applied seven. Do
you think that has anything to do with the administration's
attitude toward and lack of support for the police department generally,
Corey Bowman.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I think absolutely, and also to just the culture of
how it's perceived of does city Hall actually back the police?
And if the police are told to do their job,
you know, are they going to be protected by the
administration that hires them essentially? So, yeah, you mentioned this
and I kind of showed you the T shirts.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
That's a great story, folks, get a load of this.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So you know, we we tragically lost to the New
York Jets this year. The Cincinnati Bengals did well that game.
I actually was a part of a tailgate and just
kind of meeting people and stuff, and one of a
group that I was meeting was a former well not
former current NYPD officers. Now a lot of them had
(13:28):
come into town for the game because they're all Jets fans.
And then as I'm talking with them, you know, we
started talking with even the union presence and all sorts
of things that that just developed this relationship to be
able to communicate with I mean, in my mind, the
best of the best and the nation, you know, second
to c CPD what should be absolutely so as we
(13:52):
were talking, I was sitting there telling these guys, hey,
just so you know, you know, we know what's coming
down the line with the future mayor, Mom, Dannie. We
know that there's a lot of distrust with that current administration.
This is what I was trying to do. Because I
knew lateral hiring was going to be an issue. I
had talked with many of them about the possibility of
(14:12):
them moving to their families to Cincinnati, an amazing city
that has a lower cost of living and if you
have an administration that backs you up. All of them
jumped at the opportunity of possibly moving to Cincinnati and
helping with the CPD and joining the force of Cincinnati
Police Department.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Oh, the cost of living here is so much lower,
it's insane.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, So these are things that we were as a campaign.
It wasn't just putting out videos and just saying hey,
we want to be mayor. We were trying to find
solutions because in my mind, this is such a key
issue that actually down the line a lot of people
are ignoring right now. But you've got you know, maybe
sixty to eighty officers maybe even more than that that
(14:55):
are entering that have the possibility of entering. The drop
is what they say, right they have the ability to retire.
Most officers under a good program don't take that retirement
right away. They continue on, they get their pension, they
get they build up their future for retirement. And also
they're working a job that they love and they want
(15:15):
to protect and serve the community. Right now, if things
don't change, you know, for the door, I'm telling you
right now, even starting this year, there will be a
rush for the door to where that twenty percent understaffed
will quickly turn into thirty percent understaffed. And then when
you try to do the lateral hiring, when you try
to do any type of recruitment, you're going to see
low numbers there because the confidence of the morale, the
(15:36):
things that produce proper recruitment, are not going to be employeed.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Well, couple with that, knowing full well that as a
lateral hire, under the current circumstances, you are guaranteeing you
will be working a lot of additional overtime hours, whether
you can or want to or not.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, And that's something that you know, that's the culture
of the police department right now, to where I have
officers coming in my shop and you know, they just
don't know what to do because they got into the
job to protect and serve. They love the city, they
love the communities they serve, but the culture and the
morale has decreased so much over the years to where
you know, we have to do things to make it
(16:12):
better for our police officers to be able to do
their jobs properly. And that's not happening right now.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Right And a simple non legislative, non monetary solution to that,
something to get the process started, is to get mayor
a f to have provol city manager Cheryl Long, all
of the members of council. First, I'd say, maybe get
rid of virus Rowle, who's a problem in the background.
But beyond that, to get out loud and start encouraging
this cooperation starts supporting the police department in the work
(16:39):
they are doing protecting the residents of the City of Cincinnati,
and heeding the advice that may come from withinside the
police department at ways to solve the problems and provide
better solutions so that we can be better served by
the police department.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I would also end it with this is that when
the problem of public safety always becomes an issue, the
solution for the other side always is let's throw more
money at it. Right you know, Mayor Portval suggested that
we raise the income taxes and the earning taxes of
the city in order to put more into public safety.
But I would venture to say, hey, we need to
complete overhaul of how the money is being spent, because
(17:15):
right now, sixty four percent of our budget goes toward
public safety. But what's categorized as public safety? Are these
lawsuits and these settlements categorized in that? Are all these
administrative costs, or are these community initiatives and all these
things to maybe paint a building or pick up trash
or maybe all these events that don't have anything to
do with helping your police department, with helping public safety.
(17:38):
You know, a lot of nonprofits and goos contractors. A
lot that money is going toward a lot of things
categorized under public safety that is not going toward benefiting
public safety.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Well, Irish for Ally's sons got a job involved in
public safety at Government Square that resulted in some actually
some printing work for T shirts and hoodies by Iris.
The husband apparently has a printing company, so that's all
worked out. Well, there's no crime in Government Square anymore,
is there, Corey Bowman.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I mean, I believe that there was just a recent
shooting that you got the guy.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I saw that as well. We'll call that a rhetorical question.
Corey Bowman, Happy new to you, Best of health to
you and your family. Understand everybody's doing really well. I
asked you that off air, But your family's doing well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
We just celebrated my son's sixth birthday yesterday, so he's
very excited for that, and both my boys started school
this year as well. So yeah, there's a lot of
great things. We love this city. We're just going to
keep on going, and you know, just so thankful for
people like you that and for other people that have
had that voice in the community. To be able to
(18:42):
bring these issues to light. I would say that these
people and anybody else that if you were loud during
an election year, be even more loud during the off
election years. Hold people accountable because we have to see
our city, see safe streets, prosper streets and clean.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Street and you like me. No one wants the city
to survive and prosper more than us, and we just
feel that we have better ideas for that. The current
situation has proven to be a failure. There's a different path.
Why not at least try it? Council Corey Bouma, we
will talk again soon. Keep up the great work and
get a cup of coffee at King's Arms coffee shop
(19:17):
in West Send. Support Corey Boem and there's again a
free plug for you. Corey. I'm happy to do that,
he
Corey came into Stios on break post election. Yes, Corey
Bowman ran from mayor of the City of Cincinnata. Notice
the color charted electoral map we keep permanently posted here
on the morning show. Strekker put that up after the
Quire produced it. So we see the red areas where
people were smart enough to vote for you, Corey Bowman.
And then we have the color coded chart showing the
(00:32):
percentage of voters that went pervoll and the current makeup
of Cincinni City Council, which is only one member different
than it was prior to the election. And it's all
you know, pervall fifty to seventy, pro ball seventy one
to eighty four, and per ball eighty five to one hundred. This,
of course, based upon the reality of the last fall
election where only one out of twenty five registered voters
or people actually showed up to vote. It's insane, Corey.
(00:54):
I don't get it. I don't understand people's lack of
interest or they're fair to pay attention to the problems
that we all knew about going into the election. And
here we are with the exact same cast of characters,
and what unfolds in the aftermath is more information about
how poorly run the city's been up up to the election.
If we had all this information, like the firing of
police Chief Thiji, the camera installation that was promised for
(01:16):
years and denied, on and on and on like these
are reflections of mismanagement, I mean, plain and simple. The
whole iris rolling thing floating around the background that has
just got everybody like, what in the hell is this
all about? It could have been different, but it wasn't.
So you're citizen Corey Bowman, but you're still a West
End resident, correct, Yes, sir?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, first off, thank you so much for having me.
Good good morning, everybody for listening everything. It's going to
be a great day today. But yeah, Brian, first off,
you know, thank you so much for the entire year
that we were running that campaign that you consistently had
us on talking about the issues and you know, like
what you said, you know, when it comes to the
management of the city, that's what we ran the race on.
(01:56):
And I think that even after the election, even though
it's not the results that we wanted to see, you know,
in the words of one of my friends, Christopher Smithman,
elections have consequences elections have consequences, and I think that
one of the most important things we can continue to
do is to keep these issues at the forefront of
the conversation. You know, I made a post a while
back go something that hit me pretty close to home,
(02:19):
was that one of our church members, her granddaughter was
Queen Irie, the eleven year old girl that got shot down.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
So what happened was is that her grandmother is a
member of our church. The shooting happened at Laurel Park,
which is about six blocks away from our church, right
across the street from where they live, and the little
girl two years prior, we had actually gotten a chance
to pray with her at an outreach that we had
at that park, at the very place where she tragically
got her life taken away.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You had to have a vigil there because of the
other eleven year old that got killed there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, so two years before it was Dominic Davis, and
these are issues that we've seen throughout the city. And
so I made a post just kind of pleading to
the leaders at city Hall, just saying, this is an
election here. I'm not making this post for another run
or another race. I'm making this post as a citizen,
as a pastor, as a business owner, as somebody member
of their community. And the thing is that we've got
(03:15):
to do better. We've got to do better when it
comes to public safety. And I'll just throw this in
there that the answer to that is not just throwing
more money at it.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, no question about it. Although money is necessary to
buy things like cameras, I think we all can probably
come to a reasonable conclusion that, let's say, since the
first eleven year old was shot in the park and
the promise was made the cameras would be installed, and
I can't. We can acknowledge the cameras don't prevent crime,
they deter it. I use the analogy again, burglars know
(03:47):
a house with a dog versus a house with no dog.
They go to the house with no dog because who
wants to take that chance? Cameras are up. It's like
having a cop there. Do you want to take a
chance where they can identify you even if you have
a mask on. They can identify people based up on
their height and their gate and their weight. With cameras,
they're wonderful evidentiary tools to be used in finding a
guy that committed crime, But in front of that is
(04:09):
the guy that's going to commit the crime can look
up or know there's cameras in this area. I'm gonna
move to an area where there's no cameras. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well also too, I mean the issues that we talked
about the entire year, right when it comes to public safety,
this isn't rocket science. You know. The crime has been
a problem since canaan Able, right, and there has been
solutions to that, you know, in our city. I think
one of the biggest things that we were pushing that
we still push right now is I mean, number one,
you're twenty percent understaffed as a police department. Any organization,
(04:38):
any company, any type of entity that is twenty percent
understaffed is not going to operate to the fullest of
its ability. We've got to increase lateral hiring. We've got
to make sure that those complement levels are up. And
then also we've got to put pressure on the judges
to hold criminals accountable because I talk with the people
in the community. These criminals do not paint a right
(05:00):
picture of the entire community.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
It's a very small amount of people that aren't held accountable,
and we've got to change that from the judicial system,
and then finally you got to bridge that gap between
the police officers and the community they serves. One way
to do that is to enforce low level crimes de
escalation tactics and encourage your officers to be more involved
in situations rather than just only swoop in at the
(05:23):
worst case scenario.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, along those lines, I think of the whole you know,
the romantic notion of the beat cop. Everybody knows them,
you know, I think of the I can't remember what
it was the name of the program was, but swinging
the baton, you know, the night stick walking down the
street and saying hello to.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, the Pleasantville type of the Andy Griffin.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And doors at night to make sure they're locked. I mean,
it's all a romantic notion, but it does suggest that
it's a friendly relationship, a familiar relationship with the people
who the officers are patrolling in that neighborhood, and that
connection sort of gives people the positive I to the police.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
You know what's funny is that I was working at
my coffee shop. I had to cover for one of
my baristas, and as I'm in there, you know, that's
kind of my opportunity to tell people, Hey, this is
a good chance to meet me if you want to,
you know, schedule meeting or whatever.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I'm just going to be serving customers.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
So as I'm in there, gentlemen, comes in a very
prominent businessman in the city, and over the course of
thirty minutes of him in there, every customer came in.
I probably gave a like ten second hug to every
single one of them, saying, Hi, how's your family, how's
this And he just looked at me and said, well,
you're like Andy Griffith right now, what the heck is
going on in the West End right now? But then
(06:35):
if it's okay, I want to tell a story about
what happened that night with the eleven year old getting shot,
because we were with the family that night, and this
was a kind of a revelation that I had because
you know, the first radio interview I did, somebody said, well,
this is really personal for you now, and I said, well,
this was always personal to me, even throughout the race,
(06:56):
because it wasn't just about being mayor of Cincinnati. That night,
I got the call from the grandmother. Me and my
wife were about to go to Graters with our kids,
and we go right to Cincinnati Children's and we were
with the family during some of the most horrific scenes
that you would ever see when it comes to mourning
and the loss of a loved one, from the mother,
from the father, and from all the cousins, young cousins.
(07:19):
Seeing the whole yeah, and seeing the whole process, from
the detectives, from the corner, from all these different processes,
from how they're treated by social workers, all sorts of
things going on, and then when they finally get escorted
out at the end of the night, right, and it
wasn't done rightly at all. When the whole family gets
escorted out, we go to the place where little Queen
(07:40):
Eyrie was shot and it's at Laurel Park. It's right
across the street from the grandmother's house. So we're there
that night. I was there until past midnight. We got,
you know, some pizzas delivered to the family. When something
like that happens, the whole community comes out. Well, this
is something that struck me, right, is that I'm out
there just you know, kind of praying with people, talk
with people about the little girl. And we're in the
(08:02):
middle of the park. Well, there's some cars that are
pulling by that are fairly driving fairly slow, right, and
they've got ten windows. I mean, everybody's got ten windows now.
But what happened was I called some contacts with the
police department. I said, get some cruisers down here if
you can, to Laurel Park to protect the family because
they're out in the park their morning. I mean, we're
(08:23):
in the dirt where you can find blood where the
girl was, right. So then the cop cars pull up
and the whole community at first freaks out.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And they think they're responding.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
They think they're responding, right, and they think that they're
there to try to clear them out. I raise up
my hands and I say, no, no, no, no, no,
that's me. Those officers are here for you, for your protection,
to protect you. And then something just happened to where
they realized that they could actually be on their side, right.
And I'm sitting there thinking, isn't this what elected officials
(08:55):
should be doing. Isn't this what leaders in the city
should be doing, bridging that gap between the community and
the police officers that want to protect and serve them.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
And that's the last thing on the provol administration agenda.
Corey Bowman, you know, yeah, it was Aftab at that meet.
I know the answer is no. It's a rhetorical question
from Joe Strecker, but no, Aftab pro Voll wasn't at
the park for your vigil. He hasn't never showed up there, has.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
He to my knowledge, And you know, I like to
give credit. Where's credit, dude? To my knowledge, he did
through a detective try to reach out to the family
as well, and so I mean that's, you know, something
that I think is needed as well, just leadership reaching out.
I know there was a couple city council members that
were there at the balloon release, so but this is
something that we always have to put the forefront. Accountability,
(09:40):
accountability to accountability. If we're if you've got that large
amount of people proportion wise that are voting for these
people in city hall, well then it is your job
to keep them accountable and make sure that they're doing
the job of keeping the city safe, clean and protected.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Corey Bowman will return. We got another second with him
before we get to the bottom of the ar with
Jack Windsor, editor in chief the Isle Press Network and
Neil Windsor Report, which you can find on zoom on
Ice in Ohio as well as propertytech is that's the bottom
of the hour. One more with Corey after these brief words.
(10:19):
Eight eighteen Here fifty five KRCD talk station post election
coverage here with Corey Bowman from since formerly running for
mayor of the City of Cincinnati. He's still a resident
of the West End. Of course, his church is there,
his business with King's Arms Coffee, right, yeah, sort of
shout out, that's free plug for you. Show up there.
A lot of people do. I stay in touch with
(10:40):
the neighborhood. Get yourself a good cup of coffee, and
support Corey Budma, which I encourage you doing. Now. You
mentioned earlier lateral hires, and I know that. See I
was gonna say your campaign in running for mayor had
a couple of really positive results the mayor. After that part,
Volt was denying that there was any crime to even
notice in the City of Cincinnati. I know I'm boiling
(11:02):
it down to its minimalist terms, but every time someone
got hurt or shot or killed, there's nothing to see.
It's just an you know, the violent crimes down We
kept hearing down, down, down, down, down. Don't believe your eyes,
don't believe the news. Just believe me and what I'm
telling you kind of a marketing plan. None of them
ever supported the police. They were all part of many
of them part of the defund the police movement. That
(11:22):
was all the rage Black Lives Matter was going down,
and we saw what happened to so many cities on that.
So your campaign, though, elevated crime to the attention of
the voting public. Coupled with Sarah Herringer, whose husband murdered
in her over the wrong department, I don't think. I
don't think Mayor I have to have Pearl will ever
bother to pick up a phone to call her. But whatever,
(11:44):
you had the violent beat down, most notably the issue
involving Holly, who was able to stop the fight by
stopping a cold punch with her face, knocking her out
and causing serious bodily damage, and the attention that that
guy things are out of control in downtown that would
force the administration, because of you and your pro police campaign,
(12:06):
to rise to the challenge. We're gonna do this, We're
addressing crime. We're gonna throw five point four million dollars.
We're gonna put some cameras over on the West end,
which had been promised for a couple of years. We're
gonna hire laterally, we're gonna add additional police officers to
fill the contingent of police officers on the force, which
is about two hundred down. There's an idea, but then
(12:27):
when they implement it, they open thirty spots up And
Ken Cobra, FLP president told me seven applied seven. Do
you think that has anything to do with the administration's
attitude toward and lack of support for the police department generally,
Corey Bowman.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I think absolutely, and also to just the culture of
how it's perceived of does city Hall actually back the police?
And if the police are told to do their job,
you know, are they going to be protected by the
administration that hires them essentially? So, yeah, you mentioned this
and I kind of showed you the T shirts.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
That's a great story, folks, get a load of this.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So you know, we we tragically lost to the New
York Jets this year. The Cincinnati Bengals did well that game.
I actually was a part of a tailgate and just
kind of meeting people and stuff, and one of a
group that I was meeting was a former well not
former current NYPD officers. Now a lot of them had
(13:28):
come into town for the game because they're all Jets fans.
And then as I'm talking with them, you know, we
started talking with even the union presence and all sorts
of things that that just developed this relationship to be
able to communicate with I mean, in my mind, the
best of the best and the nation, you know, second
to c CPD what should be absolutely so as we
(13:52):
were talking, I was sitting there telling these guys, hey,
just so you know, you know, we know what's coming
down the line with the future mayor, Mom, Dannie. We
know that there's a lot of distrust with that current administration.
This is what I was trying to do. Because I
knew lateral hiring was going to be an issue. I
had talked with many of them about the possibility of
(14:12):
them moving to their families to Cincinnati, an amazing city
that has a lower cost of living and if you
have an administration that backs you up. All of them
jumped at the opportunity of possibly moving to Cincinnati and
helping with the CPD and joining the force of Cincinnati
Police Department.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Oh, the cost of living here is so much lower,
it's insane.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, So these are things that we were as a campaign.
It wasn't just putting out videos and just saying hey,
we want to be mayor. We were trying to find
solutions because in my mind, this is such a key
issue that actually down the line a lot of people
are ignoring right now. But you've got you know, maybe
sixty to eighty officers maybe even more than that that
(14:55):
are entering that have the possibility of entering. The drop
is what they say, right they have the ability to retire.
Most officers under a good program don't take that retirement
right away. They continue on, they get their pension, they
get they build up their future for retirement. And also
they're working a job that they love and they want
(15:15):
to protect and serve the community. Right now, if things
don't change, you know, for the door, I'm telling you
right now, even starting this year, there will be a
rush for the door to where that twenty percent understaffed
will quickly turn into thirty percent understaffed. And then when
you try to do the lateral hiring, when you try
to do any type of recruitment, you're going to see
low numbers there because the confidence of the morale, the
(15:36):
things that produce proper recruitment, are not going to be employeed.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Well, couple with that, knowing full well that as a
lateral hire, under the current circumstances, you are guaranteeing you
will be working a lot of additional overtime hours, whether
you can or want to or not.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, And that's something that you know, that's the culture
of the police department right now, to where I have
officers coming in my shop and you know, they just
don't know what to do because they got into the
job to protect and serve. They love the city, they
love the communities they serve, but the culture and the
morale has decreased so much over the years to where
you know, we have to do things to make it
(16:12):
better for our police officers to be able to do
their jobs properly. And that's not happening right now.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Right And a simple non legislative, non monetary solution to that,
something to get the process started, is to get mayor
a f to have provol city manager Cheryl Long, all
of the members of council. First, I'd say, maybe get
rid of virus Rowle, who's a problem in the background.
But beyond that, to get out loud and start encouraging
this cooperation starts supporting the police department in the work
(16:39):
they are doing protecting the residents of the City of Cincinnati,
and heeding the advice that may come from withinside the
police department at ways to solve the problems and provide
better solutions so that we can be better served by
the police department.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I would also end it with this is that when
the problem of public safety always becomes an issue, the
solution for the other side always is let's throw more
money at it. Right you know, Mayor Portval suggested that
we raise the income taxes and the earning taxes of
the city in order to put more into public safety.
But I would venture to say, hey, we need to
complete overhaul of how the money is being spent, because
(17:15):
right now, sixty four percent of our budget goes toward
public safety. But what's categorized as public safety? Are these
lawsuits and these settlements categorized in that? Are all these
administrative costs, or are these community initiatives and all these
things to maybe paint a building or pick up trash
or maybe all these events that don't have anything to
do with helping your police department, with helping public safety.
(17:38):
You know, a lot of nonprofits and goos contractors. A
lot that money is going toward a lot of things
categorized under public safety that is not going toward benefiting
public safety.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Well, Irish for Ally's sons got a job involved in
public safety at Government Square that resulted in some actually
some printing work for T shirts and hoodies by Iris.
The husband apparently has a printing company, so that's all
worked out. Well, there's no crime in Government Square anymore,
is there, Corey Bowman.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I mean, I believe that there was just a recent
shooting that you got the guy.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I saw that as well. We'll call that a rhetorical question.
Corey Bowman, Happy new to you, Best of health to
you and your family. Understand everybody's doing really well. I
asked you that off air, But your family's doing well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
We just celebrated my son's sixth birthday yesterday, so he's
very excited for that, and both my boys started school
this year as well. So yeah, there's a lot of
great things. We love this city. We're just going to
keep on going, and you know, just so thankful for
people like you that and for other people that have
had that voice in the community. To be able to
(18:42):
bring these issues to light. I would say that these
people and anybody else that if you were loud during
an election year, be even more loud during the off
election years. Hold people accountable because we have to see
our city, see safe streets, prosper streets and clean.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Street and you like me. No one wants the city
to survive and prosper more than us, and we just
feel that we have better ideas for that. The current
situation has proven to be a failure. There's a different path.
Why not at least try it? Council Corey Bouma, we
will talk again soon. Keep up the great work and
get a cup of coffee at King's Arms coffee shop
(19:17):
in West Send. Support Corey Boem and there's again a
free plug for you. Corey. I'm happy to do that,
he
Brian Thomas News
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