Cincinnati Shooting: Why Jumping to Conclusions Harms Everyone

On Thursday, May 1, 2025, Cincinnati Police were involved in what is being termed as a “controversial shooting,” because it involves the death of a young Black teen, really still a boy who had just turned 18 a few weeks before. The circumstances surrounding this, as reported by a very left-leaning news outlet (that shall remain nameless), begin with the tagline: the killing of a teen at the hands of police. Note the wording here that immediately steers the reader to believe that police were once again somehow at fault and unjustly caused the death of a young Black man. The reports go on to say that this “young man,” along with three other “young men,” were in a stolen vehicle and when confronted by police, they fled on foot, and that at least he was armed.

The officers gave chase, and on the police body-cam footage, you can hear an officer shout, “He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun! On your right! On your right!” Seconds later, the teen comes out from between two dumpsters, and another officer, fearing for his life, opens up, firing multiple shots, striking the teen subject twice. He is a teen, but he is also a “subject.” Let’s not lose sight of that. As trained, the officers rendered aid in an attempt to save the subject’s life, even though he allegedly threatened the officer with a firearm. This is something that is rarely reported as part of police training. Even though we may have been threatened or even injured due to the subject’s actions against us, we still, if physically possible, render aid to the guy who tried to kill us. 

The body-cam footage is unclear and blurred (large, bold letters) due to the officer’s movements as to the positioning of the teen subject and his pointing the firearm at the officer, but the firearm was found that the subject was carrying and had an extended “clip,” which by the way is an incorrect name for the “magazine.” Why an extended magazine? More rounds available to do whatever the user intends to do with it. More deadly for certain, one can surmise. 

The initial investigation into the teen’s background describes him as a “fun-loving and good kid,” and he may have been just that to his family and friends. I can’t begin to tell you how many times we (police everywhere) arrested a “good kid” or heard that my child is “an angel and he could never be involved in something like that,” even after a written confession, but here we are once again. So what was this teen doing in a stolen car and carrying a firearm, allegedly, of course, but the early reports are that these are the facts, and he wasn’t always a “good kid.” 

I can say with much certainty that the family is usually the last to know. I include myself in this because we don’t or can’t always know what our kids are up to when they’re not with us and hanging out with their friends. My parents didn’t always know what I was up to when I wasn’t on a sports field, and sometimes got into things I shouldn’t have. I’m sure this teen’s family may not have known, or in some cases, don’t want to know, that he was running with a bad crew. Tragic and sad, but nonetheless true. 

This tragedy, and it is for the teen and his family even though the officer did what appears he needed to do to defend himself, was compounded by another one when the teen’s father being so distraught by the death of his son, sought out another police officer, a deputy sheriff that was unrelated to the officer’s involved in the shooting, who was directing traffic near the University of Cincinnati, and ran him down with his car killing him. How much more tragic can this become?

Here is the point to this entire very sad incident which usually doesn’t get to happen; all sides, police, family, attorneys for all sides, the prosecution, and especially the activists and media, have to wait for the entire investigation to be completed before any rallies or law suits or other media events are held or commenced. To the Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge’s credit, she is asking for just this: let the investigations proceed, into both incidents, as this wasn’t the case in many, many police-involved shootings around the country where civil disturbances took place without all of the facts coming out. Most notable was the shooting in Missouri in 2014, where the investigation revealed, after the fact, that the officer was justified in what he did and that initial reports of the subject kneeling in the street with his hands up were completely false.  

We have two separate but obviously connected tragic incidents that have to be analyzed on their own merits. Let’s give the investigating authorities the necessary time to do just that, without going to the Olympic-Level sport we seem to always do called Jumping to Conclusions. It isn’t fair to the police who were doing what they were trained to do and who went in harm’s way, and to be fair, I suspect that there will be a psychological aspect to the father for his targeting and killing of the deputy. Though having done the job for 37 years and based on what we know at this early stage, objectively, I have to side with my colleagues in Cincinnati, and I’m saddened for the deputy and his family and colleagues. No officer wants to be in this situation, but they did their duty. But as a human being and a father and grandfather, I do feel for the teen’s family as well. They lost a child, even though he was up to no good. Bad decisions have bad outcomes. Maybe we can all learn something from this. 

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