CINCINNATI — After more than 30 years serving in the Cincinnati Police Department, there are a lot of things Police Chief Teresa Theetge has seen — but a time where Cincinnati's youth are both the shooters behind a spike in violence and its victims isn't one of them.
"I think for me the most frustrating thing is, it's a couple things — one is the young age of the shooters and the people being shot nowadays," said Theetge, walking with WCPO anchor Craig McKee through Avondale. "I've never seen anything like that in my career. The other thing is, it used to be I had an argument with you, you know, we resolved it — we might shoot one another or attempt to shoot one another. But now, you might have a beef with somebody, they're in a group of individuals and you just drive by and discharge many rounds. You don't know who you're gonna hit. Somebody who you don't even have a beef with, a purely innocent bystander, could get struck."
Theetge said police believe that's exactly what happened on May 31 near Grant Park in Over-the-Rhine, when three people leaned out of the windows of a black Hyundai driving down McMicken Avenue and opened fire.
When the dust settled that day, a 10-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old were among four total people hit by bullets. A 20-year-old man was also shot and hospitalized.
None of those victims died from their injuries, but that wasn't the case just over two weeks later, when 16-year-old Andre Green was gunned down in South Fairmount.
Theetge said Green may have been a victim of a specific group of roughly 20 to 30 young people in Cincinnati who are at the center of this summer's spike in gun violence. Violent crime in the city is down overall compared to years prior, but the summer months nearly always herald a spike in shootings and violence as temperatures rise.
"Where are the parents?"
The problem isn't as simple as just being tied to youth in Cincinnati, Theetge said. Most kids in the city aren't at the center of the shootings, though many innocent children have become the victims.
"This is not a blanket problem with youth," said Theetge. "This is a small group of youth who we are still investigating and we will hold accountable when it all comes to fruition. You'll see we will hold them accountable. But it is pockets of them that are out there causing this problem."
It's also not an indication of a rising gang problem — Theetge was quick to dispel this theory.
At it's core, the issue is tied to how teens are responding to social situations, she said.
"It's just, you know, you disrespected me on social media so this is the way I retaliate against you. You talked to my girl, this is the way I'm going to retaliate against you, things like that," said Theetge. "So it's not a turf war, it's not a gang problem. It's groups of youth who don't know how to resolve a problem other than picking up firearms and just recklessly discharging those firearms."
To get ahead of the issue, Theetge said the department has an intelligence unit monitoring social media accounts for activity in the city and through that investigators can connect the dots on who is connected to whom.
So what about the parents of the kids responsible for the violence?
"Well, it's easy to say 'well, where are the parents? Hold the parents accountable,'" said Theetge. "And I do believe that, to a certain point, the parents should be held accountable, but what I'm seeing now with these youth is their behavior has risen to such a level that sometimes their parents are afraid of them, so the parents are reaching out to us to say 'What do I do?'"
A "critical point" in police staffing
Theetge and other members of the Cincinnati Police Department have been vocal about the staffing shortage facing law enforcement in the city, but the years of low recruitment numbers and high officer attrition from retirements have pushed them closer toward the edge.
"Our data shows us by 2029 if we don't continually recruit and hire and train, we're gonna be hurting for officers come 2029," said Theetge. "I'd like to do what I can now to avoid that critical point."
The department has been playing a numbers game for years, moving officers to cover more patrols, reducing the amount of sergeants and even re-structuring the city's police districts to cover holes created by low staffing.
CPD has turned to recruiting classes to help boost low numbers in its ranks and the city of Cincinnati has obliged, allocating more funding from the city's budget for more classes in the coming years than before.
It's an investment that's already beginning to pay off, Theetge said. The department went from a recruiting class that only saw 33 students of its roughly 50-student capacity to a new class that began on June 26 that is currently filled with 51 recruits.
"We fully expect whenever we have a recruit class we lose one or two, maybe they get in the first week and they're like 'eh, this isn't what I thought it was gonna be, I'm not cut out for this, I'm gonna go back to my old job,' and that's fine," said Theetge. "Or we might have one or two that doesn't graduate towards the end because they can't meet the standards, the state standards, and that's OK too, we expect that. But yeah, 51 is a good number to start with."
Cincinnati was not immune to a nationwide drop in recruitment to law enforcement agencies following years filled with coverage of shootings by police, outcries of systemic racial discrimination in law enforcement and accusations that use of force by officers is not equally doled out among citizens.
But Theetge said she believes people are not as discouraged to become a police officer as they once were.
"I've seen it in my career, it's very cyclical," she said. "We have trouble and then the hiring eases a little bit and we have more luck, more success there. I think the pendulum is swinging back that way now. We need to change the narrative in this country and if they're not going to do it across the country, we're going to do it in Cincinnati. We'll change the narrative."
"Police should not be the only solution to this problem."
So with a rise in the amount of young Cincinnatians resorting to spraying bullets from moving vehicles coinciding with a drop in Cincinnatians becoming law enforcement officers, where are solutions to be found?
Theetge said she believes they can be found in two places: partnerships and ownership.
Walking near Irving Park in Avondale, Theetge said the neighborhood is not the same one she once patrolled early on in her career, around 25 years ago.
"What did you see then?" asked McKee.
"Property wasn't well maintained, more blight, more criminal activity than what we're experiencing here today," said Theetge. "And it's because they take ownership, they've taken ownership. We as the police kind of nudge them along that way, but then it's up to them to take it to the, to cross the finish line."
Irving Park, for example, was recently given a face lift with help from community advocacy groups — but a partnership with the Cincinnati Zoo and other businesses in the neighborhood helped it all come together — with a little help from District Four.
"It was District Four officers who rolled up their sleeves and got involved with community partners to get this done, so kudos to them for that," said Theetge. "I think even if you expand past this park, you saw the housing up the street, you've got the Cincinnati Zoo here, you've got development all over the Avondale neighborhood. I think each and every point of that is optimistic."
She said she hopes community organizations, advocates and businesses throughout the city can see partnerships with the Cincinnati Police Department as a way to move neighborhoods forward.
Local groups, like the Avondale Development Corporation which oversees revitalization efforts in Avondale side-by-side with residents, know what's best for the communities they're involved with and thus make invaluable partners to CPD, Theetge said.
But those organizations may also have to step up and reach out, she added.
"I think sometimes it's not that they don't step up by choice, it's sometimes they want to know what is it they can do — how can they help," she said. "They don't want to step on our toes, they want to work with us, so that's where the partnership comes in. We can kind of lead them along the way and tell them what we think might be helpful to their community and then help them obtain that."
Theetge conceded that, while the Cincinnati Police Department is the city government entity residents can always reach when there's a problem, the department is not always the best answer to a community's more longstanding troubles — like groups of Cincinnati youth who decide to turn to gun violence to solve social disputes with peers.
"Think outside the box. Police should not be the only solution to this problem," she said. "If people think the police are going to solve this by arresting their way out of this problem, we have bigger problems than youth shooting youth. People have got to start thinking about 'how can I help the police solve this problem.' Maybe it's getting out and working in the community like this, maybe it's mentoring youth. Whatever ideas people have, we're open to listening to them."
You can watch the full interview with Theetge below:
