|
The Cincinnati riots of 2001 were a series of civil disorders which took place in and around the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio from April 9 to 13, 2001. The riots were the largest urban disturbance in the United States since the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The riots were sparked after 19-year-old Timothy Thomas, an unarmed African American, was shot and killed by Cincinnati Police Department Patrolman Stephen Roach during an attempt to arrest him for non-violent misdemeanors, most of which were traffic citations. Tensions were already high following a series of other incidents of alleged police brutality and racial profiling, including two deaths. Protests erupted into four nights of rioting in Cincinnati, with rioters throwing objects at police, and vandalizing and looting businesses before a city-imposed curfew effectively ended the unrest. Ultimately it was determined the riots caused $3.6 million in damage to businesses and another $1.5 to $2 million to the city. A subsequent community boycott of downtown businesses had an estimated adverse impact of $10 million on the area. Incidents of violent crime rose in the downtown area for several years thereafter. The city worked with the community and police to improve training and policies to prevent incidents like that in which Thomas was fatally wounded. == Background == The initial incident and much of the subsequent unrest took place in Over-the-Rhine, a neighborhood immediately north of Cincinnati's central business district. A 2000 demographic profile of the neighborhood showed a resident population of 7,368, of whom 5,974 were African American. The profile also showed significant poverty, unemployment, and a lack of development in the area for several decades. Some 1,667 of 3,594 housing units, or more than one third, in the neighborhood were vacant. About 96 percent of the occupied houses were renter-occupied. The neighborhood had a concentration of African Americans, who otherwise made up 40 percent overall of the 331,000 residents of the city. At the time of the riot, the median income in Over-the-Rhine was $8,600 compared to $26,774 for the city overall. Author David Waddington attributed the poverty of the area to high unemployment resulting from a loss of manufacturing jobs in the city, as well as cuts in youth programs in the city. The neighborhood had a high rate of crimes, in particular drug-related offenses. The array of poverty-associated problems resulted in heightened tensions between African-American residents in the neighborhood and the Cincinnati Police Department. Between 1995 and April 2001, fifteen black males suspected of crimes had been killed by Cincinnati police during confrontation or while in custody, including four since November 2000, while no white suspects were killed in that period. In particular, two recent deaths had sparked tensions: Roger Owensby, Jr. died November 7, 2000, allegedly of asphyxiation from a chokehold from a police officer, and Jeffrey Irons died the next day in a scuffle with police. One of the officers was acquitted, while the other case ended in a mistrial and the officer was not re-tried. While the police were criticized for racism by the community, Heather Mac Donald noted that "only three of the 15 cases raise serious questions about officer misjudgment and excessive force."〔(Heather Mac Donald, "What ''Really'' Happened in Cincinnati" ), ''City Journal,'' Summer 2001, accessed 31 March 2015〕 She said most of the deaths resulted from defensive actions by police. In the last four shootings by the department, two of which were lethal, all the police officers were black.〔 Mac Donald also noted that the incidence of police shootings was comparable to other cities of the same size, and below those in St. Louis, Missouri.〔 Three weeks before the riots, the American Civil Liberties Union and a group of local organizations filed a civil lawsuit against the police department and city, alleging 30 years of racial profiling. A number of other civil suits were initiated against the department, including one African-American man who alleged he was handcuffed and beaten during a traffic stop. Bomani Tyehimba filed a lawsuit in 1999 against the city of Cincinnati. He claimed that during a routine traffic stop, police illegally ordered him out of his car, handcuffed him and held a gun to his head. A local independent newspaper, ''CityBeat'', published research that an "analysis of 141,000 traffic citations written by Cincinnati Police in a 22-month period found black drivers twice as likely as whites to be cited for driving without a license, twice as likely to be cited for not wearing a seat belt and four times as likely to be cited for driving without proof of insurance." 〔(CityBeat )〕 The NAACP argued that such statistics were the result of police targeting "driving while black," rather than actual differences in the rate of offenses committed by different groups. Other studies have found that whites are more likely than blacks to be found with illegal guns and drugs during traffic stops. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cincinnati riots of 2001」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|