CINCINNATI -- Community leaders from all over Cincinnati received personal briefings Thursday on the deadly encounter in the Spring Grove Village that resulted in the death of a St. Bernard man.
The meetings with religious, business, civic and neighborhood organizations involved the same presentation Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Streicher made during a Wednesday news conference.
That included videotapes that showed victim Randy Ward pulling a gun from his car during a traffic stop by Officer Greg Toyeas, fleeing on foot and then being shot by Officers Kevin Newman and Jerry Enneking after he fired three times directly at Officer Shyane Schneider.
"Be it good, bad or ugly we want to get that information out there," said Greg Baker, Community Relations Manager for the Cincinnati Police Department. "Yesterday was a prime example of being able to tell the story of a really tragic event that happened and really I think it was covered from all sides."
Cincinnati City Council member Cecil Thomas, a former Cincinnati Police Officer, praised that effort as critical to preventing serious problems.
"It allowed for rumors that may have started to circulate to be dispelled very quickly," Thomas said. "Once those rumors take a life of their own, it's very difficult to bring them back into some reality."
The speedy release of shooting details wasn't always the norm for the police department.
In April 2001 information wasn't as readily available when Officer Kevin Roach shot Timothy Thomas.
Angry people crowded a Cincinnati City Hall meeting of City Council's Law Committee.
Thomas, who headed the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission at the time, recalled that the crowd wanted answers, but the police said they've be given after the investigation was done.
"They wanted answers right then and there," Thomas recalled. "As a result of not getting those answers the unrest followed and that was simply because of the distrust over what happened to Timothy Thomas."
That was the foundation that led to the Collaborative Agreement and a new way of policing in the city.
"We learned a lot in those days and thank God we did learn," Baker said Thursday. "One of those things is get information out as soon as possible."
Soon after Ward was fatally wounded, Police Chief Tom Streicher, Mayor Mark Mallory and Hamilton County Coroner Dr. O'dell Owens all made themselves available for media interviews at the scene.
A press release was also sent to all media outlets to let them know further information would be forthcoming on Wednesday.
"That was done so there wouldn't be a vacuum or void where people would begin wondering if this was a police cover up," Baker said.
The Wednesday news conference lasted nearly an hour and was extremely detailed with graphs, charts, photographs and the videotapes from cameras in police cruisers and at the car wash where Ward was shot. It was prepared from interviews with 11 police officers and 46 citizen witnesses.
"The cameras don't lie. The microphones don't lie," Thomas said. "This is the type of technology that leaves no doubt what really happened."
FOP President Kathy Harrell praised the timely release of information.
She said she heard from the Baptist Ministers Conference, the NAACP and other groups that the five officers involved in the confrontation with Ward did an excellent job.
"The information that they've been given is tremendous," Harrell said. "You would not have seen that earlier."
"Citizens having the confidence that it will be investigated, that there will be answers and that they'll have a voice I think is important," the FOP leader added.
Baker said the police department is working hard to foster, develop, improve and maintain good police-community relations in Cincinnati. That's why the department was reaching out to the community Thursday and will continue to do so.
He likened it to depositing good will in an account as often as possible in case withdrawals are needed in the future.
"I think there's an appreciation that the police department is talking to them," he continued. "It's information they need to have to go back to their constituents and testify that things are better with the Cincinnati Police Department."
Harrell said the community is lucky that no police officers or bystanders were killed or injured.
"The officers – Officer Greg Toyeas, Sgt. Pete Watts, Officer Jerry Enneking, Officer Kevin Newman and Officer Shayene Schneider -- showed extreme restraint," she said. "You can just see by those videos – and thankfully those videos were there – the extreme measures the officers took."
Officer Toyeas didn't shoot Ward during the traffic stop, despite having a gun in his right hand. Toyeas didn't feel threatened because the weapon wasn't pointed a him.
Officer Schneider twice used her Taser to subdue Ward because she didn't see a gun.
He later pulled the weapon on her and fired three shots -- all misses.
Asked whether the information presented put together too slickly, Baker said he'd keep that in mind in the future.
"We can't do too good of a job and have people think it's canned," he stated. "That was the honest truth yesterday about what happened."
"No one won in that situation," he concluded.
