From WLWT Eyewitness News 5 and ChannelCincinnati.com
Cincinnati police Lt. Col. Rick Janke said the amount of force used was consistent with protocol.
“Taking into consideration everything we’ve seen on the videotape, the officers did what they were trained to do,” he said. “It was a very violent assault by a large man on two of our officers.”
Placing the officers on leave is standard, but the way the officers were treated was unprofessional, according to Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police President Roger Webster.
The officers were read their rights, allowed one phone call, and permitted to talk only to their attorneys and a minister, according to Webster.
“The people who witnessed this offense were sent on their way, and our officers were sat down for eight hours,” he said. “Then they’re interviewed. That’s wrong. That’s ridiculous.”
The FOP asked the police chief to give the officers a 48-hour cooling-off period, but Webster said the request was denied.
“And you wonder why they don’t want to work,” he said. “That’s exactly why they don’t want to work, because they’re treated worse than the criminals they arrest, and that’s crap.”
Pike and Osterman suffered cuts and scrapes during the confrontation.
Jones had been in trouble with the law before. He was arrested for cocaine possession in 1998. Instead of jail time, he was sentenced to a treatment program, but he violated his probation repeatedly, according to WLWT, and was sentenced in August 1998 to one year in prison.
Mayor Defends Police Action
Black activists say the death Sunday of Nathaniel Jones, 41, was another example of police doing little or nothing to stop deaths of black men in encounters with police in recent years. The fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer in April 2001 prompted three nights of rioting in Cincinnati.
Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken rejected black activists’ demand Monday that he force police Chief Thomas Streicher Jr. to resign.
“What I saw was a 400-pound man violently attacking a police officer in a manner that put the lives of police officers at risk,” Luken said after viewing the videotape, which police released to the media. “While the investigations will continue, there is nothing on those tapes to suggest that the police did anything wrong.”
Luken said he agreed with the initial police assessment that the officers who struggled with Jones defended themselves as they were trained to do when attacked. The mayor has rejected previous calls by the activists for Streicher’s firing or resignation.