"Our union has always supported actions against police brutality," said Veronica Davis, a member of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1199, who participated in the march. "It is atrocious the way Black youth are being killed by the police. These killings would not be tolerated for any other segment of the population. There is no value to Black life."

The March for Justice was kicked off by a rally downtown, as the predominantly youthful crowd gathered to hear several speakers, despite the rain. "I pray my son will be the last one to die, but I don’t think he will be," said Angela Leisure, mother of Timothy Thomas. "Who will be the next parent to lose their child?"

Leisure thanked participants at the rally for "standing up for justice."

Several youth addressed the rally. One of them, 14-year-old Derrick Blasingame, remarked, "We were not rioting, we were rebelling," referring to how previous media reports of protests against Thomas’s death were described as "riots."

Baldemar Velázquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, also spoke at the rally.

As the march proceeded from downtown Cincinnati, protesters chanted, "When the cops attack, we fight back," "No justice, no peace, no racist police," and "Get those animals off the horses," pointing to cops on horseback. Many people carried banners, placards, and homemade signs.

"Police brutality has been going on in Cincinnati for a very long time. I remember it from the time I was a small child," said Derek Edwards, a hotel worker. "People close to me have been shot and killed by the police. It’s about time we demonstrated."

Mel Stormer said the march was his first protest. "I started about six or eight weeks ago, by joining in the Freedom Fridays, when people picket outside the courthouse to protest the injustice in the justice system."

"This was a resounding statement by those of us who came from many areas that police brutality is not going to go unchallenged," said Cheryl LaBash, a 51-year-old construction inspector from Detroit. She said the march showed "the reality that there is and can be unity against racism."

Lucia Palmarini, 17, from Walnut Hills High School, said her group, the Cincinnati Radical Youth, was trying to reach out to different schools to fight racial injustice. "This rally is good," she said. "There has not been anything strong enough" to stop police violence.

While thousands marched in the streets against cop violence another event took place at the Allen Temple A.M.E. Church, organized by the newly formed African American Political Caucus. About 400 people attended the meeting, which included Democratic Party politicians who are Black, such as former Cincinnati mayor Dwight Tillery. He called on the participants to "take up the ballot" to stop police violence.  
 
Youth charged with rioting and robbery
In a related development, Hamilton County prosecutor Michael Allen has filed charges against two of the more than 60 Black youth arrested during protests against the killing of Thomas. A 14-year-old and a 15-year-old have been charged with two counts each of aggravated riot and robbery. The first charge stemmed from an incident in which a white truck driver, Robert Stearns of Louisville, Kentucky, was pulled from his truck and beaten. The second charge stemmed from the destruction of a hot dog stand.

The 14-year-old, who was 13 at the time of the incidents, could be held in juvenile detention until he is 21 years old. Allen is pushing to try the 15-year-old as an adult and has added two other charges, "ethnic intimidation" and abduction. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, "The abduction charge is for allegedly restraining the truck driver during the April 10 incident." The charges of aggravated riot and robbery could result in an eight-year prison sentence if the youth is tried as an adult.

Thomas was shot and killed by cop Stephen Roach April 7 after being chased into an alley in the Over-the-Rhine area, a predominantly Black neighborhood. The cops justified the killing by saying that Thomas had run away from them when they sought to arrest him, and by citing Thomas’s alleged record of misdemeanors, including several citations for not wearing a seat belt.

The young man’s death has sparked continued mobilizations that have placed a national spotlight on police brutality in Cincinnati and on the fact that 15 Black men have been killed by the cops here since 1995, with Thomas being the fourth since November.

The mayor responded to the initial protests by declaring a state of emergency in the city, imposing a dusk to dawn curfew, and tarring the protesters as "rioters" and "looters." More than 852 people were arrested in a matter of days.

The curfew created hardships for those who live and work in working-class neighborhoods. "Many of our union members who work in inner-city nursing homes were torn between going to work and risking getting picked up by the cops or staying home and losing a day’s pay," said Veronica Davis, who is SEIU secretary treasurer in Cincinnati.

Curfew violators in Black neighborhoods were roughed up and hauled off to jail. However, local residents report, nothing has happened to curfew violators in Mount Adams, a middle-class suburb.  
 
 
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