CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police announced Thursday it has rented a mobile billboard that will travel around City Hall and downtown Cincinnati, encouraging residents to "back the chief and change Issue 5."
The 16-foot LED truck will feature an altered image of Mayor Aftab Pureval as a puppet master with the caption, "Pureval put politics over our safety."
This comes just days after City Manager Sheryl Long announced that Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge had been put on administrative leave "pending an internal investigation into the effectiveness of her leadership."
Theetge has fought back against the investigation, with her attorneys saying she is "being used as a political scapegoat and a political pawn."
Pureval backed Long, but rejected any claims that it was politically motivated ahead of the upcoming mayoral election.
"The election has nothing to do with this decision or really any of the decisions that we take in this office," Pureval said. "Our number one priority continues to be public safety."
The mayor told reporters on Wednesday that placing the chief on leave makes the city safer because it provides "strength and leadership" and "command and control" with a strong partnership between city leadership and police.
Since the decision, Cincinnati FOP President Ken Kober has said putting her on leave "doesn't solve a damn thing" and pushed for the repeal of Issue 5, a measure passed after the April 2001 police killing of Timothy Thomas that allows city leadership to hire or appoint chiefs from outside the department and gave the city manager authority to hire and remove them without the traditional civil service protections.
"Mayor Pureval, the puppet master who really made this decision, wants to fire the chief to make her the scapegoat of his failed leadership and progressive politics," Kober said in a release about the decision to rent a billboard. "If we want to fix the violence and long-term issues facing Cincinnati, city council needs to change Issue 5 and put the power to fire a chief in the hands of city council, not the city manager with influence from the mayor."
Any changes to the voter-approved charter amendment would require approval by voters. That could happen through city council passing an ordinance by a two-thirds vote to place it on the ballot or through citizens petitioning the city to place proposed changes on the ballot.
