Hamilton Police Chief Craig Bucheit said the peaceful demonstration Sunday sent a powerful message for the city.
“With what I’ve seen taking place in other cities across our nation, I think it’s great and I’m proud that our community chose to come together in peace and prayer,” Bucheit said.
The Minneapolis police officer, and his fellow officers, committed “serious crimes,” said Hamilton Mayor Pat Moeller.
“The knee to the neck incident is a very disturbing crime against any member of any race; it is even more disturbing that African Americans seem to be the victims of a high rate of these occurrences,” Moeller said. ”Peaceful demonstrations speak louder, with more cultural change, than demonstrations laced with vandalism and arson against businesses and assaults against peace-keepers and innocent parties.”
Moeller said he was encouraged after seeing a recent Facebook post of a 16-year-old girl inviting citizens to a demonstration in downtown Hamilton on Wednesday.
“I hope to meet her and encourage her to follow the peaceful, successful actions of a 26 year old young man, Dr. Martin Luther King (Jr.), in his early years. And I will listen,” Moeller said. “We need young leaders to help solve these problems.”
A small, mostly peaceful demonstration in Middletown Saturday at the city building ended with some rock throwing from juveniles, said Middletown Police Chief David Birk. Acting Middletown City Manager Susan Cohen praised Birk and his team for doing a “fantastic” job working with the community and communicating.
“He met with members of the African American community on Friday and will continue to meet regularly with our Citizens Advisory Board to address polices of the Middletown Division of Police,” Cohen said. “These open lines of communication are the best preparation we can have for a safe and productive dialogue.”
Middletown Mayor Nicole Condrey believes the rioting events in Minneapolis and around the nation are partially a result of the pent-up anger and energy resulting from the widespread stay-at-home orders in response to the coronavirus.
“George Floyd’s unfortunate death served as a spark to this underlying fodder from the separate COVID-19 issue,” she said.
Condrey, a former Foreign Service officer, said diplomacy on all levels is the most peaceful, least expensive and most effective tool for confronting outrage.
MORE: Hundreds march peacefully through Hamilton in protest: What happened Sunday
Butler County GOP Executive Chairman Todd Hall said he believes that people have a right to protest when they feel an injustice has been done.
“Just like last month, when people protested their rights had been violated over lockdown orders, so it is the same today over racial injustice,” Hall said. “Protests are distinctly American. However, rioting and looting are not peaceful protests and have no place in our society.”
Furthermore, he said, “violent actions just deepen the divide.”
Butler County Commissioner T.C. Rogers agreed.
“No matter how you’ve been wronged or how you feel that still doesn’t give you the license to break into a business and steal property,” Rogers said.
Hall said the George Floyd video displayed true cruelty and “should be a wake-up call to our society.”
“The video bothered me greatly, as it did countless others, but we must realize, as (President) John F. Kennedy stated, to ‘let us not be blind to our differences, but let us direct our attention to our common interests and to the means which those differences can be resolved.’” Hall said.”
MORE: Small protest in Middletown ends with rocks thrown after dark Saturday
Butler County Democratic Party Executive Chairman Brian Hester said that “equating Americans protesting the unjustified and cruel murder of an African American citizen by police to conservatives whining about having to wear masks during an epidemic is the tone deafness we’ve come to expect from the Republican Party.”
“We need to restore the kind of police reforms that worked after (the killing of a black man in Ferguson, Missouri),” Hester said. “Sadly, President Trump walked away from those proven policies. We need to stop criticizing how people of color protest. Nobody died when (Colin Kaepernick) took a knee. Maybe we should have listened then.”
Miami University political science professor John Forren said what’s playing out in America right now is “quite remarkable in the modern history of American politics.”
At least as far back as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireside chats during the 1930s and 1940s, Americans have traditionally turned to the president for primary leadership during times of crisis, Forren said.
The nation has seen that “over and over,” he said, including President Ronald Reagan’s response to the Challenger disaster, President Bill Clinton’s response to the Oklahoma City bombing, President George W. Bush’s response to 9/11 and President Barack Obama’s response to the Sandy Hook shootings.
“Right now, though, Americans are quite divided, and we have a president who has chosen not to play, at least to this point, the uniter-in-chief role that is typically occupied during crises by the occupant of the White House,” Forren said. “This, in turn, has allowed state and local officials — mostly governors and mayors — to emerge around the nation as the primary face of the governmental response to the crisis.”
Bucheit said his department is continuing to monitor the situation and prepare for every possible scenario.
“While I fully support any effort to bring people together to better our community, we will not tolerate any amount of violence or destruction” Bucheit said. “How we move forward and how we better our community is a decision for all of us to make – together.”
Butler County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer said while there’s “always a concern” that large crowds could morph into something dangerous, everything he’s been seeing in Butler County has been peaceful so far.
“We prepare, obviously when there’s situations like this we put contingency plans into place,” Dwyer said. “Our first goal is just the safety of the people involved and allowing people to express their concerns and voice their concerns and just keep everybody safe.”
Fairfield Twp. Assistant Police Chief Capt. Doug Lanier said his department is preparing to respond to any protests.
“We work with other agencies, we have equipment,” Lanier said. “We monitor intel. I don’t want to speak for any other jurisdiction, but as far as the township goes we have any information of planned protests or demonstrations.”
Lanier said anything beyond peaceful protests or demonstration, which he said “could pop up anywhere,” will see the department reacting accordingly.
“We have people to protect, we have property to protect and safety comes first,” he said.
MORE: PHOTOS: Hundreds march in protest during Hamilton event that ends at courthouse
This report was compiled by staff writers Denise G. Callahan, Lauren Pack, Michael D. Pitman, Ed Richter and Eric Schwartzberg.
About the Author
