Tense City Council meeting a pivotal moment in 2001 Cincinnati unrest
Days after Cincinnati Police officer Steven Roach shot and killed Timothy Thomas, Cincinnati City Councilâs Law and Public Safety Committee held itâs meeting at City Hall â it would prove to be a pivotal moment.
and last updated 2021-04-08 18:24:47-04
Twenty years ago, in the early morning hours of April 7, 2001, Cincinnati Police Officer Stephen Roach shot and killed 19-year-old Timothy Thomas in an Over-the-Rhine alley. Thomas was the 15th Black man killed by police since 1995, and his death sparked three days of unrest that highlighted a deep divide between Cincinnatiâs Black community and the police. That mistrust, along with lawsuits accusing the department of a decades-long history of racial profiling, helped shape the
Tom Uhlman / AP
Some people think the tensions between Cincinnati s Black community and the city s police force began on a night in April 2001, when a white police officer chased a 19-year-old Black man into a dark Over-the-Rhine alleyway and killed him with a single shot to the heart.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The fact is the shooting of Timothy Thomas by then-officer Stephen Roach was the lighted match thrown into a highly combustible cauldron of distrust and anger that had been stewing for years and led to six days and nights of civil unrest that gripped the city in fear.