Criminal Justice

On the night of April 7, 2007, a young 19 year old black man was shot to death by a local policeman named Stephen Roach in Cincinnati, Ohio. This took place at night around 2 a.m. in a neighborhood called “Over the Rhine”. It all started when the Timothy Thomas was spotted walking down the street by an off-duty officer. He was spotted outside of a local nightclub called “The Warehouse”. As the officer started to approach Thomas, he started running and that is where the chase had begun(MSNBC).

During the chase, a officer on the radio had started describing Thomas and announced that he had 14 outstanding warrants on him and soon after more officers join the pursuit. As he is running, 27 year-old Officer Stephen Roach spots him running into an alley and as a police car gets close with the camera rolling, the officer ran towards the alley and let out a shot as immediately. The single bullet from that shot pierced the suspect’s heart and he was pronounced dead an hour later at 3:02 a.m. Later on, the officer was questioned and he stated that he thought that Thomas was reaching for a gun. There was no gun found at the scene where Thomas was shot. Even though Thomas’s death was part of the reason for the city’s enragement, what happened a few months before is what had eventually led up to all of Thomas’s outstanding tickets and then to the eventual fatal shooting. A few months earlier, Thomas had been driving and he had been pulled over many times for non-moving violations and got 11 tickets in two months for the same two offenses which were driving without a license and not wearing a seat belt. Racial profiling was suspected in this because both offenses were non-moving violations and it would be difficult for you to see into some else’s car from any distance let alone see their driver’s license(MSNBC).

Another article states that Officer Roach was charged with negligent homicide and obstructing official business. The shooting of Thomas led to four days of protest and riots in the already racially tense city. As the blacks in the city waited for the Grand Jury’s decision on the officer’s actions,