Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Money is in a past. All hands on is a
(00:02):
crew tragedy. Get the news right here, bring people up
to date on fifty five KRC eight oh five.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
If you're a fifty five KRC DE talk station, I'm
very very happy Friday e to you. Of course that
means Dave, are that Jay Rattle? If I heart media
aviation experts coming up at bottom of the hour. Always
love those conversations, Jay and I always love to talking
with FOP President Ken Coverer. He is a head of
the Cincinni Police Departments Union Chapter sixty nine. Welcome back, Cancober.
It's pleasure to have you on the program again.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hey Brian, how are you? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm doing really well. I guess I don't know if
you've got a near full or people are supportive of
what you said. I know you're I believe your word
was frustrated or you believe it's frustrating that Donald Trump
pardoned the pretty much all of the J six rioters.
Can you explain how why it is you take that position,
(00:54):
because you know, people look at Biden's pardons of you know,
all kinds of criminals, of all sorts of sentence. If
not pardons outright. He did it thousands of them before
he left office. And I don't know if Donald Trump
just felt he was obligated to pardon these folks. But
I think many people in my listening the audience believe
that while there were some violent people in there, and
(01:14):
no one can excuse violence, most notably against police officers,
but that a lot of them were being prosecuted or
at least face prosecution for something as simple as walking
through the capital doors and wandering around, which I think,
under the circumstances, is a reasonable thing to do. The
thing got out of hand, and I never was supportive
of what was going on there. I want you to
(01:34):
be very clear on that, and I do not support
anyone being violent toward police officers. My sister was a
retired police officer. I wouldn't want it happened to her.
So what's your take on this, Ken.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Well, And that's where I think you have some things
that were said yesterday were completely misconstrued because I made
it very very clear what I spoke about was people
that assaulted police officers have no business being pardoned. The
rest of them, that's their business, that's that's politics, that's
things for them. What I focus on is law enforcement
(02:05):
and those that were getting you know, hit over the
head with metal bats and things like that.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, those folks shouldn't be pardoned. The rest of them.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
You just walk through the capitol and you have what
trespassing at best. Should they spend three and a half
four years in prison? Absolutely not. But that's that's one
of the things that I focused on yesterday. And like
I said, maybe there was some some misconstruing of words
that I said, but I focus narrowly on what the
national FOP stance was, which was those that assaulted law
(02:31):
enforcement officers that caused injuries.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
It's it's disappointing that they would be pardoned.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
The sweeping of just pardoning everybody, to me was frustrating
primarily because you're talking.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
About all suits that were assaulted fair enough, and I
think that adequately responds to it. And I share your
position about no one who is violent toward a police
officers should be let off. I have no problem with
that because I think under any circumstance it is inappropriate.
But you know, but the problem with this conversation because
it causes and allows people to go off on a
(03:02):
tangent and I've seen it mentioned. Of course, the Fox
nineteen article which is the genesis of this mentioned CNN
said it also led directly and indirectly to the deaths
of four Trump supporters and five police officers. Well, if
you look behind the veneer of that, yes, Officer sick
Nick was struck by a fire extinguisher, but the medical
examiner said he did not die from that. He died
(03:23):
of a stroke after he went back to the building.
He did not die of blunt force trauma. And the
other four officers, sad as it may be, died of suicide,
and their families claim it's because of the trauma they
experienced having to deal with the Capitol Hill drunken fraternity party,
and they some of them were injured. But again, I'm
not going to excuse anybody being violence toward the police.
But you know, Ken, you signed up for the job,
(03:44):
you knew what you were in store for. And yeah,
as a police officer, you might be in a situation
where you got to deal with riot control.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Oh, there's no doubt. I mean we've dealt with in
our careers. We saw it in twenty twenty here, we
saw it in two thousand and one. It is part
of the job. Now, this is the hard part about policing,
and you're right, we all signed up for it. Is
sometimes police officers and certainly officers that have died, you know,
whether it was directly related or not, become political pawns.
(04:13):
And unfortunately, that's what's happened here as you have all
these political sides going back and forth and they decide, well,
you know what, let's try to exploit an officer who
committed suicide and let's just say, well, it's because of this.
And that's that's what's frustrating about this is, you know,
this is all just some political nonsense going on on
(04:33):
both sides, and cops end up getting stuck in the middle.
And that's that's unfortunate that that's how it is, but
it's a reality that we have to live with every day.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, and I know that there are line of duty
benefits that are available. But my understanding is from the
folks that did commit suicide trying to claim that the
suicides were approximately caused by the riots, either the cases
are still pending or some of them have been denied
saying no, this is not related to the riots. It
has no directques correlation no proximate causation ergo, no death
(05:03):
benefits allowed. Do the CINCINNT Police Department enjoy line of
duty benefits if they are injured or killed in the
line of duty?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, absolutely, there's statewide benefits. There's also national benefits that
officers get, like Sunny Kim's family he was murdered in
the line of duty back in twenty fifteen. There are
benefits that the family gets ensure to ensure that they're
taken care of. But it is a fine line, especially
when it's a death that occurs after the fact. You
(05:34):
know it's off duty. And we had a friend of
mine that was injured in the line of duty several
years ago, about eighteen months later, he ends up passing away.
You could probably draw that connection because he had a
pretty severe.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Injury, but there's no proof of it.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
You couldn't prove that this is exactly what it was
related to, and therefore your family doesn't get benefits.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Well, cann Of, you're missing my obligations to the police,
which I thoroughly support. If I did point out how
stressful the job is, I mean, I will never ever
forget the level of stress my sister was under when
she was working special crimes and had to deal with
all those child molesters. I mean having to go in
every day to the office and look at the horror
that those perverts commit on children. I mean talk about
(06:18):
a bubble burst and stress inducer.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Oh, there's no doubt. You know.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I spent four and a half years in our fugitive unit,
and you know we would go looking for murders, rapists, robbers,
all these people are shooting people. The ones that affected
me the most, the hardest ones to go and arrest,
or the pedophiles or the one you know, sex crimes
against kids, of violence against these little kids. Those were
the worst ones because that's the father and me the
(06:43):
human and death wants to just take these people and
just strangle them, but you can't. Those those were the
by far the most difficult ones for me to deal with.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I can imagine the other component to that. Then people
cut off and might not think about It's why I
bring it up. The purpose that you know are responsible
for molesting children, maybe in the process of ongoing molestation.
While you're busy doing the evidence gathering, you know that
that is still going on or could be still going on,
and you're sort of you can't do anything about it. God,
(07:15):
that would just I couldn't sleep if I was if
I was aware of that kind of thing and I
was responsible for going after him.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
No, no, it was certainly.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
It's a frustrating thing to deal with, but you have
to keep in the back of your mind that justice
is going to be served and that we have a
job to do. We have to be professional, regardless of
the circumstances, regardless of our personal feelings.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And we have a job to do.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
It is to go arrest these people, bring them to
the investigators, let the investigators do their thing. That way,
these people can spend the rest of their lives, hopefully
under the prison.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Oh yeah, and feeling the wrath of their fellow prisoners. Anyhow,
real quick here, I saw that WCPO reported it may
have been reported elsewhere. Response times are down in the
city of Cincinnati about thirty seconds more calendar year over
for the police to arrive. And I so people know
the average response time over eight minutes compared to seven
(08:10):
minutes and thirty seconds and twenty twenty three. Part of
the problem the closing a district five. Do you agree
with that?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Well, there's no doubt.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I mean, you look at the numbers and I went
over on with WCPO yesterday. The districts that have the
biggest response times were District three and District four, which
are the ones that absorbed the lion's share of District
five by its closing. And it's something that I hear
from officers constantly. They're frustrated about. You know, it takes
me this much longer to get to a radio run
(08:38):
because I'm going from this beat and I'm covering an officer,
you know, up in College Hill or up in Mount Area.
It takes longer because the district's that much bigger, and
it is certainly something that has been a source of
frustration since it's closed.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, I guess I have to ask, and I think
I know the answer to this, Ken, what's the likelihood
they're going to reopen a district?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Be honest with you, I don't think it's very good.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I think if they had the money for it, maybe,
but of course you know they're they're going to say
that they don't have the money for it, and it's
something that it is frustrating. I think you look at
the numbers and you see that it's a problem. But
what are you going to do to fix it? And
that's that's yet to be seen. I guess we'll I'll
hold out hope that maybe they'll come to their senses
(09:23):
and see that you know, we need to change this,
but who knows.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You just have to wait.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
It's called the allocation of scarce resources. And one of
the most important things for a city to live, thrive,
and survive is to have an efficient, good of well
oiled machine in the police department. Safety is paramount for
a city that wants to grow. And you know, we
don't need a streetcar. What we need are enough officers
to get to you if you are in peril or
a crime is being committed in a very short period
(09:49):
of time. And clearly that's not the direction we go
when we shut down police districts.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Now.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
That's the other part too, is you know we're still
one hundred and almost one hundred and forty officer a
short Oh we keep on having recruit classes.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
We have one in now.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
But you have a recruit recruit class that graduates here
in May has about forty one officers and we're going
to lose.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Probably sixty or seventy this year. Oh No, it's an
uphill battle.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
We talk about recruit classes. The one thing everybody has
to keep in mind, I guess, is the number of
officers that are retiring. It happens every year, and sometimes
it happens at a faster pace than other years. I
get the impression from the officers that I know, and
I won't name names, and I want to put you
on the spot, but I get the impression morale isn't
exactly high within the cincint Police Department right now.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Well, it's it's just a challenge, it is.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I mean, you're dealing with, you know, being short staffed
all the time, You're dealing with the increased radio runs,
increased violence, all those things come into play, you know,
and we're going to get ready to go back into
our events season where off days are going to be
canceled constantly, and it's just it's frustrating. I think a
lot of these things will be sold if we ever
(11:00):
do get back to our full compliment. I just don't
see it, you know, happening in the next five to
ten years. As much as the city trying to hire people,
you got to you gotta, you gotta make this job
more attractive. You know, and until things turn around politically,
you know, whether it's locally, state or nationally, which hopefully
things will be on the on the uptick now, and
(11:22):
you know, hopefully we'll be able to get more people
in here.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Amen to that, because that just adds to the already
stressful reality of your lives, which that component doesn't have
to be there. If we had appropriately funded in staff
police force, you could at least take that element of
stress out of your lives. Ken, Cober, appreciate you being
on the program. FOP President, keep up the great work,
and I appreciate you explaining what you had to say
(11:44):
about the Jay sixers. I agree that violence against police
officers should never be excused, and hopefully that would be
the order of the day if it helps it all, Trump,
pardon the former DC police officer that was convicted the
death of the Andrews, the bad his name, convicted the
conspiracy and obstruction of justice in connection with the It
(12:06):
was a Trayvon Martin situation or something like that, but anyway,
he believed he was wrongfully convicted, so at least he
tried to make up a little bit with that one
line of duty incident. Ken, I won't hold you on
the spot on that one. But I do appreciate your
time this morning, and I look forward to having you
on the program.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Down the road. All right, Thanks Brian, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
My pleasure coming up in eight eighteen fifty five KRCD
talk station.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Stick around.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
We got a little bit more time to talk. And then,
of course I always look forward to Friday or Thursday,
Friday Eve at a thirty because you get to talk
to Jay Rat left a bunch of topics with Jay
this morning, So please stick around fifty five car the
talk station.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Steve Air with USA and so