CINCINNATI — The May 1 shooting death of Ryan Hinton was the sixth time in nine weeks that a Greater Cincinnati law enforcement officer shot at someone.
Police training expert Gene Ferrara said much can be learned from studying the recent trend, but not why they’re happening so frequently.
“They’re all random acts,” said Ferrara, a former University of Cincinnati police chief, who has been training police officers on use of force practices since 1974. “I think the most important thing for people to understand is police officers are not trained to act. They’re trained to react. What the officer does is contingent upon what the person they are confronting does.”
Ferrara said six shootings by police is "a lot" of shootings for this time period.
The WCPO 9 I-Team reviewed details of the six recent shooting incidents to see if anything could be learned. One thing that jumped out is that Cincinnati released body cam videos one day after its two recent shootings, while other departments waited up to 17 days.
“I could make a case both ways,” Ferrara said. “If you don’t release it, everybody questions, ‘What are you covering up?’ But the fact is, it takes a long time to complete an investigation. And the video is only part of it. So, I could argue that you should wait until you have all of the facts because it could be misleading without the other facts.”
Here is a review of the recent shooting incidents:
On Feb. 28, Covington police officers responded to reports of an armed robbery in the 600 block of Madison Ave. Officers found Charles Davis in a nearby alley, where he pointed a toy gun at officers before they fired multiple shots. Kenton County Commonwealth Attorney Rob Sanders said the gun was altered so it “appeared readily capable of causing serious physical injury or death.” Sanders released body cam video to support his conclusion not to charge the officers. The video was released 17 days after the shooting.
On March 3, Cincinnati police shot Patrick Lyons, 31, after a 911 caller reported a man with a knife and gun in the 3000 block of Gilbert Ave. One day later, Cincinnati released body cam video showing Lyons lunged at an officer with a knife. Lyons wasn’t seriously injured, is in the Hamilton County Justice Center, facing three counts of felonious assault.
On March 19, a police chase led to the shooting death of Samuel Mumyarutete on I-75 near Evendale Drive. Wyoming police released dash camera video on March 25. Hamilton County’s prosecutor released body cam video on April 7, while announcing that charges would not be filed against a Lockland officer who fired the shot.
On April 1, a Kelsey Hildal of Blue Ash was shot and killed by police after driving the wrong way on I-275 in Clermont County. On April 30, Union Township police released four videos showing the incident from their officers’ perspective. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation hasn’t completed its investigation of the incident.
On April 29, Michael Simpson of Cleves was injured when two Boone County deputies fired their weapons after Simpson pulled out a gun and pointed it toward his head, according to a preliminary investigation conducted by Kentucky State Police. No video has been released to date.
On May 1, 18-year-old Ryan Hinton was shot by a Cincinnati police officer while running from officers trying to arrest him and three others found in a stolen car in East Price Hill. Body cam video was released one day later, hours before Hinton’s father crashed into a Hamilton County deputy who was directing traffic near the University of Cincinnati. Rodney Hinton Jr. is charged with aggravated murder in the death of Deputy Larry Henderson. The Hinton family has retained attorneys demanding a full investigation of the shooting.
Cincinnati Police Chief Theresa Theetge has implemented a standard protocol that body camera footage is released 24 hours after a police shooting, according to Public Information Officer Lt. Jonathan Cunningham.
Ferrara said he expects local policies to be reviewed on the release of video, as more information emerges on the deaths of Henderson and Ryan Hinton.
“Whenever an incident occurred, as a training person, I would try to get those reports to see is there something we should be doing, or something we should no longer do or whatever,” Ferrara said. “I’m going to guess that there will be departments who will rethink whatever their policy was. But that doesn’t mean it was wrong,” to release video one day after Hinton’s death.
“How do you predict what a person is going to do when you show them the video? We know what they did in this case. But is that correlation or causation? I don’t know that’s been proven,” Ferrara said. “I don’t know that there is a right call.”
