Police chief transfers top three women commanders to positions "no one wants"

CINCINNATI - Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Streicher has transferred all three top women commanders from their posts, according to sources and personnel transfer documents the I-Team has obtained. Police sources say the new positions reflect lesser measures of responsibility.

The latest development comes one day after a prior I-Team public records request revealed a sexual discrimination complaint one of the women filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The transfers impact the three women at the Cincinnati Police Department who hold the highest levels of command. In department history, there have only been five women in such high positions, and two have retired.

Tuesday, the city's first and only female assistant police chief added her voice to this ever-building story.

Lt. Col. Cindy Combs was one of three candidates in contention when Tom Streicher won the top job as Chief of Police. For nine years she proudly headed the Information Management Bureau at police headquarters. "I did not ask to be transferred," she tells the I-Team. "I had a number of ongoing projects near completion I would have wanted to see through to the end."

But 31 years into her career, Chief Streicher transferred Combs in April to another bureau without "the same measure of responsibility as the previous assignment", she says. Ever loyal, Combs promises to do a good job "wherever they put me."

Her story echoes Monday’s revelations by Captain Kim Frey, who ran District Three, the city’s largest police district. The chief transferred her to the police academy, where no recruit class is scheduled for the foreseeable future.

She says, "It was devastating, absolutely devastating. It was heartbreaking. I wasn't ready to go."

Frey says she was transferred after she complained to Chief Streicher about a meeting he ran where another captain showed sexually explicit pictures of a prostitution raid. She says they exceeded anything she’d observed in her years at top command staff meetings. "I've been on 30 years, seen a lot of stuff. And it was unnecessary. It was bad."

Frey says the chief acknowledged to her that he should have stopped that meeting. She heard nothing more until her transfer. She's filed a complaint with the EEOC asking for her job back as district three commander.

Perhaps the most prestigious district command is District One, at police headquarters. That job belonged to Captain Teresa Theetge, the third top woman at CPD and part of a longtime family tradition with the department. Two of her brothers also serve as captains, as did her father Gary Neville before he retired, and another sister also serves in the department. In April, Theetge lost her District One command. The chief transferred her to Vice. We couldn’t reach her Tuesday.

The transfers came amidst a mass list of personnel changes Chief Streicher has imposed over the past two months, involving 10 captains and four of the five assistant police chiefs, as well as many lower-ranking officers. Some of those changes involve better assignments, but one male source tells the I-Team the top three women got new postings that are "low-profile positions no one wants."

Despite the changes, the women still hesitate to criticize the chief or the department. Frey says despite her complaint she’ll only confirm her personal experience of discrimination against women at the Cincinnati Police Department. She says, “It's very difficult to acknowledge that. Maybe it's because I didn't want to believe it."

Chief Streicher hasn’t responded to our requests for an interview. Tuesday we got an e-mail from public information officer Sgt. Danita Kilgore saying, "Because of the ongoing EEOC complaint investigation filed on behalf of Captain Frey, it would obviously be inappropriate for the Chief to comment at this time. He declines an interview for that reason."