Inspiring Smiles Forever
Complete Works, Portraits, Landscapes, Still Lifes, Sculpture, Lego Artist...
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Victims Killed by Stray Bullets
Locations of gun violence especially those killed by stray bullets.
Sharon and Hillary in front of the Clfton Market Window Box Gallery featuring Shrine Portraits.
SOS ART
Work continues on updating the portraits placed at the shrines of the fallen
around Cincinnati.
Adding at least one every year to coincide with Saad Goshen's
SOS Show of Social Peace and Justice.
The first one was placed in 2012 where Angela Grayson was killed by a stray
bullet at Forest and Burnet.
Down the road is Buchie Wood's shrine portrait out front of the Cold n Quick
at Vine and Forest.
He was cut down with a stray bullet.
Tom is always looking for more 24" wide realtor yard signs to hold the
vinyl sticker of the art. Click
To Contact if you have an realtor yard sign to donate.
The original framed 8" x 10" art, given to the family.
All portraits are painted in a special technique of melting nine oil pastel
colors with a heat gun.
Tom invented the technique for a Lego painting machine.
A community art show and event of creative expressions for Peace and Justice
You can see Tom's Sidewalk Shrine Portraits at the shrines of the fallen around town. He adds at least one every year to coincide with Saad Goshen's SOS Show of Social Peace and Justice. He prints at the library and now its closed for awhile due to COVID-19. The first one was in 2012 at Burnet and Forest. Angela Grayson was killed by a stray bullet. Down the road is Buchie Wood's shrine portrait out front of the Cold n Quick at Vine and Forest. He was cut down with a stray bullet. Tom is always looking for more realtor yard signs to hold the art. In the beginning, Tom would paint the portraits in latex on scrapped gessoed board. Now he prints them on vinyl. The original art is an 8" x 10" canvas, he gives to the family. When they wear out he replaces them.
In the cue
Issac Miller
Chanel Jordan
Leron Billings
Shrine Portraits Not Installed
Google Map of Locations of Shrine Portraits
Ms. LeBarón, 20" x 24", Oil pastel metled on gessoed board December 2019
Painted from an image in the New York Times showing the grieving members of the amubush of a caravan of Mormons that took place in Mexico.
The inspiration for Ms. LeBaron came from a New York Times image of the grieving
survivors of the cartel ambush in Mexico.
Tom paints victims of catastrophes. He painted Gabriella Gifford after she was
shot. Currently he is working on a survivor of the school shootings. All the
work painted in his nine color palette.
You can see Tom's Sidewalk Shrine Portraits at the shrines of the fallen around
Cincinnati. He adds at least one every year to coincide with Saad Goshen's SOS
Show of Social Peace and Justice. The first one was in 2012 at Burnet and Forest.
Angela Grayson was killed by a stray bullet at Forest and Burnet. Down the road
is Buchie Wood's shrine portrait out front of the Cold n Quick at Vine and Forest.
He was cut down with a stray bullet. Tom is always looking for more realtor
yard signs to hold the vinyl sticker of the art. The original art he gives to
the family.
This painting uses a special technique of melting nine special oil pastel colors
with a heat gun. Tom invented the technique for a Lego painting machine.
Shrine Portraits Installed
Jordan Ware, 8" x 10", Oil pastel melted on metal, May 2020
2:21 p.m. April 23, 2020 Jordan Ware was found dead from a gunshot wound at Irving and Forest near the playground between Vine and the Zoo. A print of this portrait will be placed at the site. Tom has many Sidewalk Shrine Portraits all over Cincinnati. A gesture that means a lot to the family and brings hope to a tragedy. The family receives the original art.
Donte Ford, 8" x 10", Oil pastel melted on metal, May 2019
Donte caught in crossfire in Over-the-Rhine. A 24” x 24” vinyl color print of the painting in a metal frame will be placed at his shrine on Vine Street near Tucker’s.
Markeith Peek, 8" x 10", Oil pastel melted on metal, May 2017
Markeith Peek was murdered June 18, 2014 coming out of a store in Lower Price
Hill. A pastor said they prayed together before he passed out and died.
His sister scrapped up and gave him a funeral for they family had no insurance.
Now his sister is the only living child to their mother. Being gone has left
an empty void inside mother and sister. Three guys were involved. One pled to
manslaughter and aggravated robbery.
A 24” x 24” vinyl color print of the painting in a metal frame will
be placed at his shrine established by his sister at the base of a tree in front
of a gated park where he fell on Neave St. between Storrs St. and Staebler St.
Jahmaria Lanae Cruz, 8" x 10", Oil pastel melted on metal, May 2017
Jahmaria Lanae Cruz passed Sunday, May 14, 2017 Age 18 years
A $1 million dollar bond was set for the Sharonville man accused of shooting
an 18-year-old girl to death in South Fairmount Sunday, according to court records.
Anthony Chase was arrested within hours of the shooting death of Jahmaria Cruz,
police said.
Cruz was found dead in the backyard of Ley Avenue residence at approximately
1:30 p.m.
Chase has previously been convicted of attempted felonious assault and aggravated
robbery charges.
Theo Dreyfus, 10" x 18", Oil pastel melted on metal, May 2017
May 9, 2009 we started remembering Theo. We cry. He left for many unknowns
and got home safely except for one accident on the Bolivian road that took his
life.
"Carpe Diem" THEODORE-DREYFUS-RIP-HIS-LEGACY-FOR-THE-BOLIVIAN-DEATH-ROAD
Brittany Tranae Jackson, 24" x 24", Latex on gessoed board, 2016
Portrait of a victim of gun violence to be placed at the shrine established at the site of her death. Brittany Jackson, 20, was hit by a stray bullet Sunday morning at Broadway and 13th Street, the southeast corner of the old Performing Arts school as she walked home. Michael Crutchfield, 27, was shooting at three people May 10, 2009 when a stray bullet struck Brittany. Jackson was taken to University Hospital where she died. Crutchfield was sentenced for murder, felonious assault and attempted murder. Jackson's family spoke during sentencing, pleading for a hefty sentence.
Jason Dukes, 24" x 24", Latex on gessoed board, 2016
Portrait of a victim of gun violence to be placed at the shrine established at the site of his death. Jason was a convicted drug dealer who was trying to straighten out his life. The portrait will be placed at his shrine off Linn Street near Central Parkway. His shrine is maintained by his family who believed strongly in his wanting to change his life for the better.
Pamela Barnett, 24" x 24", Latex on gessoed board
A man stood in the street and cried after being involved in a tragic accident that killed a beloved West End grandmother. Pamela Barnett was hit as she walked across Central Parkway about 6 p.m. Tuesday. She was standing on the yellow line in the middle of the busy road when one car hit her and threw her into the path of another car.
Timothy Thomas, Acrylic on board, 24" x 24", December 18, 2014
Timothy Thomas, Acrylic on board, 24" x 24", Re-installed April 7, 2016
Reposted from http://citybeat.com/cincinnati/article-34950-unrest_in_otr_15_years_later.html
Unrest in OTR: 15 Years Later
What’s changed?—?and what hasn’t
BY NICK SWARTSELL · APRIL 5TH, 2016 · COVER STORY
April 7, 2001 forever changed Cincinnati.
The police shooting death of unarmed black citizen Timothy Thomas in Over-the-Rhine
and subsequent unrest here 15 years ago presaged incidents in Baltimore, Ferguson,
Mo., Chicago and elsewhere by more than a decade.
When other cities erupted with anger and fear over those more recent incidents,
however, protests in Cincinnati remained peaceful and police left their riot
gear at headquarters. Images of recent marches and rallies in Cincinnati present
both an echo of and a contrast to the fitful reckoning that came after Thomas’
death in 2001.
A decade and a half after the unrest, many outside the city have lauded changes
undertaken here. Cincinnati has been heralded by national publications like
The New York Times, The Atlantic and others as a model for a nation experiencing
a crisis around issues of police and race relations.
“The city that once served as a prime example of broken policing now stands
as a model of effective reform,” reads an Atlantic article published last
year.
Government task forces have also held Cincinnati up as an example of reform
done right. Both President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing,
which visited Cincinnati, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s Taskforce on Community-Police
Relations held up the city’s Collaborative Agreement and problem-oriented
policing approach as worth emulating.
But data suggests there is much more work to do. Arrests and stops by police
still fall disproportionately on blacks here. The demographic makeup of area
law enforcement agencies still doesn’t mirror the population they serve.
Controversial police-involved deaths continue to happen. And pervasive economic
segregation in predominantly black neighborhoods continues to put stress on
those communities. In fact, some critics say changes that have occurred in OTR
since the unrest only underscore the city’s stubborn fault lines around
race and economics.
Then and Now
The shooting of 19-year-old Thomas in OTR by Cincinnati police officer Stephen
Roach strained long-standing tensions here to the breaking point.
Roach was white. Thomas was black. The incident shook Cincinnati, a city with
racial tensions already churning just under the surface.
During an emotional Cincinnati City Council meeting the evening after the shooting,
Thomas’ mother Angela Leisure had a simple request.
“I demand to know why,” she said among a packed crowd of 200 angry
protesters at City Hall.
Funeral for Timothy Thomas, 2001 - Photo: Jimmy Heath, courtesy the Greater
Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless
From there, hundreds took to the streets during three days of civil unrest,
seeking answers for Thomas’ death and the deaths of 15 other black men
killed by CPD officers during the five years prior. Some posed an immediate
threat to officers, CPD said. But three of those prior incidents involved unarmed
citizens. No white citizens were killed by police in that time frame.
Long after the protests ended, after the curfews were lifted and after buildings
that had been burned were rebuilt — in some cases replaced with shining
new storefronts — the fateful shooting in a dark alley just off Republic
Street has continued to have ripple effects.
A lawsuit against the city brought by local activists like Iris Roley and Rev.
Damon Lynch III of the Black United Front, as well as the American Civil Liberties
Union, resulted in federal oversight for CPD as it made reform efforts. Among
those reforms: Cincinnati’s Collaborative Agreement, which is now hailed
nationally as the gold standard in police reform.
The agreement created a framework for a more community-oriented kind of policing,
better training and education for officers and increased oversight and accountability
for police, among other reforms.
Time and struggles for reform have also changed attitudes.
“Without the civil unrest of 2001, the progress and change in our city,
and the dramatic nature of the change, would have been less,” former Cincinnati
Mayor Charlie Luken said recently at a Xavier University event about the unrest.
That’s a change in tone from those heady days in 2001, when Luken had
harsh words for some of the protesters.
“Some of them seem to be out here just for the fun of it,” Luken
remarked on a WCPO newscast at the time. “A lot of what I saw was not
people reacting to the event … a lot of what I saw was 12-year-old kids
stealing hot dogs from vendors and breaking windows.”
Cincinnati Police Department District 4 Captain Maris Herold says policing in
Cincinnati has gotten remarkably better since the unrest. She touts the so-called
“problem-oriented policing” approach that CPD adopted after 2001.
That approach focuses policing on the small number of people committing crimes
against a small number of victims in a couple dozen “hot spots”
around the city.
“To me, everything is about strategy in policing, because policing is
a paramilitary organization,” she says. “Prior to 2001 … basically,
we were told to go out into the community with zero tolerance. When the community
had complaints of violence, drug dealing, the overarching strategy was go out
and arrest everything that moves. You could see it in the eyes of the people
you were dealing with that this had horrible harm to the community.”
A protester faces off with police during the 2001 unrest - Photo: Jimmy Heath,
courtesy of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless
Arrest and use of force numbers show the effectiveness of the change in strategy,
Herold and others say.
Use of force by police in Cincinnati has dropped nearly 70 percent in the past
15 years. Injuries sustained during encounters with officers have dropped by
more than half. And the crime rate itself in the city has decreased by almost
half as well — from more than 4,000 violent crimes in 2001 to just over
2,300 in 2014 — though some of that coincides with a large drop in crime
since the 1990s in cities across the country.
But the reduction in crime and arrests isn’t the whole story.
“We’ve reduced arrests, but if you look at the percentages of black
people getting arrested, it’s about the same,” says Cincinnati civil
rights attorney Al Gerhardstein, who represented the Black United Front in its
2001 lawsuit.
Gerhardstein lauds the switch to problem-oriented policing, but he points out
that 70 percent of felony and misdemeanor arrests still involve blacks. Police
arrest data for 2015 up to October of that year shows that 2,090 of CPD’s
2,936 felony arrests were of black citizens. Of the department’s 13,447
misdemeanor arrestees, 9,430 were black.
That arrest disparity has proven stubborn. In 2001 and the years immediately
after, the ratio of black citizens arrested hovered around 77 percent. The rate
has been as high as 83 percent as recently as 2013, and in 2014, black citizens
again accounted for 77 percent of felony arrests by CPD.
“We haven’t tackled that core problem,” Gerhardstein says
of racial disparities in arrests.
Blacks also account for a similarly disproportionate percentage of the city’s
crime victims, including homicides and other serious offenses. Many offenses
happen in areas where low-income, mostly black citizens have been concentrated
by decades of policy decisions and market forces. Reams of studies show correlation
between economic distress and crime in communities whether they are black or
white.
Gerhardstein is hopeful about a new initiative that CPD has adopted this year
called PIVOT, or Place-Based Investigations of Violent Offender Territories.
PIVOT is designed to further efforts like the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce
Violence, or CIRV, which started in 2007. PIVOT combines CIRV’s focus
on the networks linking offenders and the community with data-driven, intensive
attention on chronic crime locations that place-based policing pinpoints.
Former CPD police chief Jeffrey Blackwell and protesters at a rally for Samuel
DuBose. Blackwell became the face of CPD's community engagement efforts before
his dismissal last year. - Photo: Nick Swartsell
The key to the new approaches, Gerhardstein says, is engaging community stakeholders,
including landlords, nearby businesses, neighborhood residents and others, and
by changing environmental conditions such as lighting and traffic patterns that
make locations more conducive to crime. If instituted properly, Gerhardstein
believes PIVOT can further chip away at the number of arrests CPD makes and
hopefully limit the disparities in those arrests as well.
But the reasons for those disparities are complex and larger than any one officer
or department.
“So many young men of color become part of [the justice system] because
so many minority families and communities are struggling... they lack all sorts
of opportunities that most of us take for granted,” Federal Bureau of
Investigation Director James Comey said in a speech on race and implicit bias
in law enforcement at Georgetown University last year. Comey called that “a
tragedy of American life — one that most citizens are able to drive around
because it doesn’t touch them."
Continuing Tension and the Samuel DuBose Tragedy
The death of Samuel DuBose at the hands of University of Cincinnati police officer
Ray Tensing last summer showed the extent of the problems that remain.
DuBose was killed July 19 after Tensing shot him in the head during a routine
traffic stop in Mount Auburn over a missing front license plate. Though Tensing
initially claimed he was dragged by DuBose’s car, footage from his body
camera showed otherwise.
Currently, the UC Police Department is not covered by the city’s Collaborative
Agreement.
Within 10 days of the shooting, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announced
an indictment of Tensing on murder and manslaughter charges. He will stand trial
for those charges in October.
UC fired Tensing and reached an almost $5 million settlement with DuBose’s
family. The department’s police chief, Jason Goodrich, also resigned earlier
this year.
Despite the quicker move to indict Tensing — it took a month to indict
Roach in 2001 — many in the black community say DuBose’s shooting
is a stark reminder of the work left to be done.
“Even in 2015, some lessons have continued to escape us,” Southwest
Ohio Urban League CEO Donna Jones Baker told the crowd at Xavier. “We
mourn the death of Mr. DuBose. There is no reason he should have died.
“In many respects, even given the many successes we’ve had with
the Collaborative Agreement, we still don’t have it right. In my opinion,
if the agreement was good enough for CPD and the citizens of Cincinnati, it
should be good enough for any and all police agencies in Cincinnati, including
our universities and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department.”
If UCPD had not been utilizing body cameras, DuBose’s death would still
be shrouded in questions. That’s an important point because CPD has yet
to adopt body cameras.
Questions around other cases involving CPD in the last year, including the police
shooting deaths of QuanDavier Hicks in Northside last summer and Paul Gaston
in Cheviot earlier this year, highlight continuing tension and underscore the
need for the cameras.
Police said Hicks came to the door of his apartment building with a rifle after
a woman filed complaints he was threatening her. An officer shot him and he
subsequently died.
Gaston was on his knees in the street surrounded by officers after a chase in
February when he made a motion toward his waist. Police say he was reaching
for a weapon, forcing them to fire upon him. It turned out to be a toy. A bystander’s
video taken from behind Gaston shows him making a motion, but does not show
the weapon or shed light on whether he was reaching for it.
Activists and family members dispute police versions of events in both cases.
CPD is set to start phasing in body cameras this summer, but there are questions
at the state level about whether footage will be public record. Cincinnati City
Manager Harry Black last year signed a letter asking state lawmakers to keep
the footage from being covered under public records laws. He has since rescinded
that letter. State lawmakers are still working on laws around body camera footage.
Another aspect of the DuBose shooting illustrates a bigger dynamic at play.
That a minor infraction led to DuBose’s death is a tragically familiar
story. In 2001, police pursued Thomas because he had about a dozen misdemeanor
warrants for traffic and other minor offenses. Like Thomas, DuBose was in a
low-income, predominantly black neighborhood at the time of his death.
Statistics show such stops for minor incidents still fall disproportionately
on black citizens in those neighborhoods.
UCPD issued 62 percent of its traffic tickets to black motorists in 2015, and
Tensing himself gave black motorists 81 percent of the tickets he issued. UC’s
campus is about 8 percent black, though the surrounding neighborhoods have a
much higher percentage.
CPD stops for minor offenses also still fall disproportionately on blacks.
In 2015, 64 percent of those stopped by CPD for pedestrian violations and 63
percent stopped for traffic violations were black, according to department data.
The city’s overall population is 46 percent black. Many of those stops
came in predominantly black neighborhoods.
The department caught some criticism for its enforcement of minor offenses last
month when Chris Harrell, who is black, recorded his Feb. 6 arrest for a pedestrian
violation on Elder Street in northern OTR. That video subsequently went viral.
“This is what we have to go through in Cincinnati,” Harrell says
in the video, pointing his camera behind him to show bicycle officers following
him. “Harassment. Can’t even be a black man and enjoy your morning
because the police are going to harass you.”
In the video, Harrell is walking with a cup of coffee and a cellphone as officer
Baron Osterman trails him on a bicycle. At one point, the officer says Harrell
crossed against a traffic light, though Harrell says the light had already turned
and the walk signal had come on. Osterman eventually arrested Harrell, who was
subsequently charged with resisting arrest, a pedestrian violation and a minor
drug charge for possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana.
Officials with the city’s Citizen Complaint Authority, created as part
of the Collaborative Agreement, have noted the disparities in who is stopped
for minor offenses.
“We see many cases where citizens are pulled over for minor infractions
for which I have never been stopped,” former Citizen Complaint Authority
Board Chair Scott Knox wrote in the authority’s 2014 annual report. “I
do not believe that any significant number of officers get up in the morning
thinking, ‘I’ll pull over people based on their race today,’
but what I see is a disproportionate number of African-American citizens pulled
over for minor infractions.”
The demographics within CPD also have yet to reflect the community it serves.
Overall, the makeup of CPD has budged little since the 2001 unrest. Back then,
287, or 28 percent, of the city’s 1,028 officers were black. Today, 314
of the city’s 1,056 officers are. That’s a little less than 30 percent
of the force in a city that is 46 percent black.
CPD supporters say there has been progress in this area at CPD, pointing to
three black officers recently promoted to captain in the department and the
fact that the city’s last three police chiefs, including current Chief
Eliot Isaac, have been black.
High-Profile Incidents and Accountability Questions
Beyond the demographic numbers, there are still questions about how officers
are disciplined when they break rules, both within and outside of the complaint
process.
The Citizens Complaint Authority is supposed to be a first step in that process
for those who feel like police have wronged them. The authority, which is made
up of a five-member board, investigates complaints about use of force, harassment,
improper procedures, discourtesy and lack of service. But it hasn’t been
as high-profile as it could be, some say.
“It’s just not very present in our lives,” says Gerhardstein,
who calls the CCA somewhat “invisible.”
Last year, the Citizen Complaint Authority hired a new director, Kim Neal, who
has made it a mission to get the agency out into the community more. Neal and
other CCA officials have spent time visiting the city’s 52 community councils
and speaking with citizens who are unaware of the Citizen Complaint Authority
or unsure about what it does.
Citizen complaints against police have dropped more than 40 percent from 15
years ago. But in the past five years, allegations lodged with the CCA have
stayed more or less steady. There were 561 allegations in 2010, 596 in 2012
and 556 in 2014, according to CCA reports.
During that time frame, of the 650 cases investigated (not all allegations were
investigated by the CCA, and some complaints contained multiple allegations),
62 were sustained, or turned over to the Cincinnati police chief.
How complaints are handled by CPD is somewhat unclear, however, an issue Neal
says she is working on.
“That’s what the community wants to know,” she told WCPO last
year. “If these allegations are sustained, people want to know what’s
happening to the officers. … Is the police department listening to you?”
The Citizen Complaint Authority keeps lists of officers who have received more
than 10 complaints in a two-year period.
Among the officers who have appeared on this list are Zachary Sterbling and
Erich Kohler, two of the three officers involved in the Gaston shooting in Cheviot
earlier this year. Police officials have ruled that shooting justified.
Sterbling had 10 complaints with 17 allegations between 2012 and 2014, while
Kohler had 11 complaints with 14 allegations between 2011 and 2013. Both have
also made the list in other years.
Other officers involved in high-profile police killings have also had questionable
incidents on their records outside the Citizen Complaint Authority’s complaint
process.
Last year, two Cincinnati police officers were charged in the coverup of a car
accident involving a third officer, Sgt. Andrew Mitchell. In 2011, Mitchell
shot and killed local musician David “Bones” Hebert, who was white,
in Northside after police said Hebert was brandishing a sword. Later investigations
revealed he had only a knife and that there was inconclusive evidence to show
he meant to attack or threaten officers.
According to court documents, Mitchell was off duty and driving his personal
vehicle, a Honda Odyssey, on West McMicken Avenue in Fairview at 5 a.m. on March
22, 2015 when he ran into a pole. Afterward, the two other officers allegedly
concealed Mitchell from witnesses, helped him get home and did not fully investigate
the accident, according to charges against the three in Hamilton County Municipal
Court.
A witness at the scene of the accident called 911, reporting that Mitchell seemed
“drunk as hell,” but no sobriety test was administered.
A Hamilton County Court judge dismissed the charges earlier this year, saying
the matter should be dealt with internally by CPD. It’s unclear what,
if any, penalties were levied against the three officers as a result of the
allegations.
Mitchell’s shooting of Hebert in 2011 was controversial, causing a number
of protests and investigations in Cincinnati. The shooting led to a 2012 wrongful
death lawsuit against CPD. That lawsuit claimed Hebert was complying with instructions
given by an investigating officer when Mitchell shot him. CPD settled that suit
last year for $187,000.
That wasn’t the only incident involving Mitchell. In January of 2008,
he was the subject of a civil rights suit after he allegedly used a Taser improperly
against a teenager. Mitchell allegedly Tased Christopher Bauer from his police
cruiser after he asked Bauer to stop. However, the teen was wearing headphones
and a hoodie and didn’t hear the command. Bauer’s suit says he fell
face forward and sustained substantial injuries during the incident. Mitchell
was eventually placed on a 40-hour suspension after exhausting appeals within
the department’s disciplinary system.
Some CPD officers once involved in controversial deaths — and with other
past disciplinary incidents — have been promoted to supervisory roles.
Earlier this year, CPD officials promoted Officer Patrick Caton to the rank
of lieutenant.
Caton was involved in the Nov. 7, 2000 death of an unarmed 29-year-old black
man named Roger Owensby, a Marine veteran with no criminal record or warrants,
in Roselawn. Caton and another officer, Robert Jorg, pulled over Owensby for
questioning, they said, when he tried to flee. A struggle ensued, during which
Owensby was tackled, taken to the ground and choked and punched while handcuffed.
He subsequently died in the back of the police cruiser. In later interviews
and testimony, Caton admitted to punching Owensby both on the ground and in
the cruiser, saying he did so with the palm of his hand so he wouldn't break
his fingers and because it caused more pain.
Owensby’s death contributed to the racial tensions in the city that came
to a head in April 2001. Caton was initially cleared in the incident but was
fired at the conclusion of an internal investigation in 2003 for his behavior
during the arrest. He later regained his job through arbitration.
CPD did not respond to a request for comment on Caton’s recent promotion.
Caton’s personnel file, obtained through a public records request, features
a number of glowing reviews from superiors. But he has also had other disciplinary
incidents, including a reprimand for using racial slurs while on duty, for which
he was briefly suspended.
There have been other tragic incidents with a controversial lack of disciplinary
outcomes at CPD. In 2010, prior to the massive revitalization of OTR’s
Washingont Park, Cincinnati police officer Marty Polk accidentally ran over
and killed Joann Burton there. Burton was laying under a blanket when Polk drove
his cruiser through the grass, hitting and killing her. Polk faced no charges
for the incident, which drew ire from some social service providers in OTR.
Economic Roots of Unrest
Despite continued questions around policing in Cincinnati, both police and activists
say reforms like the Collaborative Agreement have been a worthwhile effort.
“It still has relevance to the peoples’ lives,” says Black
United Front activist Iris Roley. “Children want to know — what
did the people do for them? This is what we left for them to continue to fix.”
But activists like Roley also say the anger that erupted during the 2001 unrest
was about more than policing.
“The original ask from the clients was about economic justice,”
Gerhardstein said of the Black United Front’s original complaints that
led to the Collaborative Agreement. “I sue people. I can’t sue to
undo capitalism. So we picked a bite-sized piece that was still tough enough.”
The economic complaints aren’t unique to Cincinnati, and they’ve
sparked unrest in other deeply segregated cities across the country.
Dr. Maliq Matthew, a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati, told
CityBeat last year that recent unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore, like Cincinnati’s
unrest in 2001, stretches back through decades of systemic inequalities.
“Really, these communities have been under pressure the whole time,”
Matthew says. “These communities don’t carry a lot of political
power and financial status. They erupt because they’re appealing to a
power structure that they feel doesn’t hear them, that has no reason to
really consider them.”
When it comes to those factors, Cincinnati still has a long way to go, as CityBeat
explored in a story last year (“That Which Divides Us,” issue of
August 26, 2015) outlining Census data that shows the disturbing extent of the
economic isolation in Cincinnati’s black neighborhoods.
A few notable points:
• Of the city’s 10 neighborhoods with the lowest median incomes,
nine are more than 70-percent black. Six of those neighborhoods with considerable
populations, including the West End and Avondale, are more than 90-percent black.
In these places, life expectancies are five to 10 years lower than the city
as a whole.
• Citywide, the median income for blacks in 2013 was $21,300. It was $48,000
for whites. That gap has been widening. In 2000, the median income for white
city residents was $36,452; for blacks, it was $20,984. In 13 years, whites
in Cincinnati have gained $11,000 in median income, while blacks have gained
just $316.
• Overall, 46 percent of the city’s black residents live in poverty,
compared to just 23 percent of whites, according to the 2012 American Community
Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The economic gaps between blacks and whites in Cincinnati start young and linger.
The city has one of the highest childhood poverty rates in the country. Despite
being in a city that is 46 percent black, the University of Cincinnati’s
student body on its flagship campus is just 8 percent black.
These inequities have dire, though slow-simmering, consequences, racial justice
activists say.
“Childhood poverty is not going to cause the next major civil unrest,
but a police shooting will,” says Rev. Damon Lynch III, another activist
instrumental in bringing about the Collaborative Agreement. “It won’t
be because our police force is just that bad, but because we allow all those
other issues to fester. It’ll come to a head when the next unarmed black
person is shot or beaten by police.”
Rev. Damon Lynch III speaks with police near Findlay Market during the 2001
unrest - Photo: CityBeat Archive
There have been efforts to address these disparities — an initiative looking
to extend preschool to all of Cincinnati’s children, new development aimed
at low-income residents in neighborhoods like Avondale and the city’s
recently created Department of Economic Inclusion, for instance. But for many,
the progress has been achingly slow.
Ironically, some say efforts to remake Over-the-Rhine in the wake of the 2001
unrest demonstrate the deeper economic and social divides still present here.
Ongoing Development in OTR
Today, the spot where Thomas died looks vastly different than it did 15 years
ago, surrounded by boutique shops, gated parking lots and glittering restaurants
standing in place of more humble establishments and vacant buildings.
Following the unrest in OTR, then-mayor Luken worked with a cadre of the city’s
business leaders to form what would become the Cincinnati Center City Development
Corporation (3CDC). Founded in 2003, it has since poured more than $400 million
into the neighborhood and an equal amount into neighboring downtown.
The development it has quarterbacked in OTR — a historically low-income,
mostly black neighborhood — has brought a rush of activity and investment
there.
Some call it unmistakable progress, with lower crime, new businesses, more middle-class
and upper-income housing and restored historic buildings.
But there’s a downside, others say.
Longtime residents are being pushed out of the neighborhood, advocates say,
as developers renovate historic buildings and raise new structures for high-rent
apartments and condos that can cost $500,000 or more.
For decades, OTR has been majority black, a holdover of the city’s demolition
of a large part of the West End in the 1960s, which caused many blacks to move
east into the neighborhood.
But recent Census data suggests this is changing in some parts of the neighborhood
that have seen large-scale redevelopment.
Otis Stevens, a long-time business owner in the community, says he thinks blacks
have been locked out of the resurgence in OTR.
“First, there was no money,” Stevens said during the Xavier event.
“We were trying to create jobs and development, a vibrant, self-sustaining
community, but there was no money. Everything moves slow when you’re talking
about fairness and opportunity. But then all of a sudden, in Over-the-Rhine,
things are in warp speed, money falling from everywhere.”
Xavier University’s Community Building Institute on Jan. 25 released a
housing inventory commissioned by the Over-the-Rhine Community Council of the
housing stock in the quickly developing neighborhood.
The study, which uses Census data and current apartment price information, found
that housing for middle-class and higher-income residents has increased. But
at the same time, the most affordable housing — units costing about $400
for a one bedroom — has decreased by 73 percent, going from 3,235 units
in 2000 to just 869 in 2015. Such affordable housing now accounts for about
22 percent of the neighborhood’s housing stock.
South of Liberty Street, the median household income for the once-impoverished
neighborhood is now $40,000 and rising, according to 2010 Census data. North
of Liberty, where little development has occurred, the median income is just
$11,000.
The Census tract encompassing the southern part of the neighborhood, where most
development has occurred in areas like the Gateway Quarter, was nearly 60 percent
black just a few years ago, according to the 2010 American Community Survey.
The tract’s population rose from just over 700 that year to more than
1,000 three years later, according to the ACS, but the black population dropped
by about 100 during that time, accounting for just 36 percent of the neighborhood
by 2013. The other Census tract south of Liberty Street saw similar changes
over that time, and as many as 1400 black residents left the neighborhood between
2000 and 2010, according to a recent Greater Cincinnati Urban League report,
even as new white residents moved in. ACS data suggests that change has increased
in the years since, with the number of black residents decreasing sharply as
white residents increase somewhat.
The ACS isn’t as precise as the 10-year Census, and the changes can’t
be definitively attributed to gentrification. But the data seems to show a clear
decrease in black residents in the area.
“I feel like my wagon’s surrounded, like I’m the last Mohican,”
Stevens says. “I’m 53 now. I started out climbing on these buildings
when I was 16. I’ve been trying to do development all my life. Where is
the money coming from? Can we get access to it? Where do we get the help that
we need to start businesses that reflect the community?”
The answers to those questions lie beyond police reforms, but they’re
intimately tied to the trauma OTR experienced 15 years ago.
For some, the neighborhood continues to be a bitter reminder of inequalities
in the justice system and beyond.
“I spent 25 years of my life in Over-the-Rhine,” says Rev. Lynch,
whose New Prospect Baptist Church once stood on the corner of Elm and Findlay
streets. Lynch’s church has since moved to Roselawn. “I lost. I
left feeling defeated. I left there with people who raised their kids and grandkids.
We keep losing because we don’t take the next step. The economic fight
is the fight we have to fight.” ©
Timothy Thomas’ death by Police was the catalyst for the 2001 Cincinnati civil unrest.
At 11 p.m. Monday, June 18, 2012 fifteen-year-old Africa Hope was killed by a stray bullet at 1700 Vine Street, Cincinnati, Ohio. This portrait is placed at the site after being in the SOS show.
Winning second place in the juried Golden Ticket Art Show at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center in Clifton, Cincinnati, Ohio verified what I had been experiencing with my art.
Realtor yard signs repainted with a portrait of a gun violence victim placed where they died, provide a positive colorful happy catalyst to solve gun violence. Help a "at Risk" person. Be part of the solution. Apathy is the problem. The signs—revered by community— are everlasting remembrances.
With each painting I experience something like a block buster movie with characters larger than life when I learn about the victim and meet the family. They live larger lives, the highest highs and lowest lows. The portraits are larger than fine art. I become a pawn in a complex battle to live in a safe productive world.
Being the creator of a painting against gun violence does not solve the problem. It is the grunt on the ground that solves gun violence. Social networks solve gun violence. Slogans, art, songs and preaching help solve gun violence but it is the grunt on the ground makes the change.
I plan on painting at these spots looking for the beautiful in these locations. I will befriend the residences and make a change. With everyone stepping up and taking back their streets we can solve this problem.
Many people are working on this problem. Many events draw attention to gun violence. I add this ongoing project to the battle.
April 4, 2013, Angela Grayson's portrait on a realtor yard sign placed where she was killed by a stray bullet while waiting for a bus in Avondale, Cincinnati in at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 24, 2006.
Killed by a stray bullet at the corner of Vine and Forest.
A positive colorful happy catalyst to solve gun violence.
Feel powerless to do anything? Help a "at risk" person.
Be part of the solution.
Apathy is part of the problem.
Earnest Crear, Latex on board, 50” x 19” x 1”, May 15, 2012, 18” x 12” board from a realtor sign painted on both sides an impressionistic portrait of Earnest Crear placed in metal realtor frame. Placed at Rockdale Avenue and Knotts Street where Earnest Crear was fatally shot, August 12, 2007. Tom Lohre won second place at the Golden Ticket Artists Exhibition at the Clifton Cultural Art Center, September 7, 2012 with the Earnest Crear portraits.
http://www.cincinnatiherald.com/stories/peacebowl.html
August 12, 2007
Cincinnati Herald
Fourteen Little League football teams had gathered at the Cincinnati Recreation
Commission's Avondale Play
Field Sunday for what the organizers hoped would become a yearly an all-day
Peace Bowl in the sweltering
August heat. The event was organized by the Cincinnati Human Relations Council,
other groups and individuals in an effort to demonstrate that youth from the
Cincinnati area neighborhoods could come together in a positive way.
City officials and other dignitaries were present for the opening ceremony.
Cincinnati Police helped organize the event and served as volunteer referees.
“The tournament was held to encourage the peaceful engagement of youth
in positive activities as an alternative to crime and violence,'' said Cheryl
Meadows, executive director of CHRC.
Former Bengals player and an Avondale Warriors coach Ickey Woods and Rod Davis,
director of the Boys and
Girls Club in Avondale, were talking about how the preseason league event was
such a positive remainder of how neighborhoods could come together to promote
peace in opposition to the violence that has plagued Cincinnati in recent years.
Little did they know that within an hour of their conversation, their Peace
Bowl would be marred by another
Avondale shooting - the 11th in the community this year - this time outside
the fence surrounding the football
field at Rockdale Avenue and Knotts Street.
Earnest Crear, 19, had come from his home in Avondale to get a ride to Price
Hill to pick up his son, Earnest III, 6 years old. Gathered in a group of about
20 young people were three of his friends, a group from which he had parted
ways in an attempt to make something of his life. For some reason, one of the
three friends pulled a gun and fatally shot Crear, one shot to his back and
another to his head.
Rev. Peterson Mingo, a Little League coach and advocate of anti-violence in
the community, and two women
from a nursing home, who were trained in CPR who were at the games to treat
for sprains and scrapes, raced from the field to the scene of the shooting.
They checked Crear's vital signs and attempted to revive him, but Crear died
while they tried to help him. Mingo offered a prayer.
The three men jogged away, according to an eyewitness.
Police say the shooting was an act of retaliation following an ongoing dispute
between Crear and his killer or
killers.
More than 200 people participated Tuesday evening in a Cincinnati Ceasefire
march in Avondale to protest the
violence. The marchers organized at the shooting location on Knotts.
Crear's mother, Sonya Crear, led the march against violence in the community.
She said her son had parted ways with the three men involved in the shooting
after having a close friendship with them. The men were often guests in her
home and at her table in the former Virginia apartment building at
Rockdale and Knott and in her present home in the neighborhood, she said.
Her son, a dropout at Woodward High School, had had some run-ins with police,
but had decided to change the direction his life was going, she said. He had
planned to spend Wednesday going to businesses and companies to fill out employment
applications, she said.
But Sunday afternoon, he was on Knotts Street, not far from his mother's home,
looking for a ride to Price Hill to pick up his son. He had called his mother
to let her know where he was, she said.
Brian Garry, a community activist and City Council candidate, was an eyewitness
to what then happened.
Garry was a speaker at the church of Rev. Peterson Mingo earlier in the day,
and both attended the football bowl, with Garry arriving around 3 p.m.
Garry said as he was walking up to the entrance to the field, he was looking
straight at a group of about 20 people about 60 feet away and across Knott Street.
“There was no struggling, fighting or yelling among the group,'' he said.
“All of a sudden I heard sounds that
sounded like fireworks. I did not see anyone pull a gun out or the guy who pulled
the trigger. It was a very quiet shot. There was no screaming or pandemonium
following the shots. I saw three men run down Rockdale, going around a house.
Then they came back, and then sort of jogged off.''
It was not at first obvious that someone was shot, he said.
Garry said the shooting “shook me up.'' He immediately dialed 911 at 3:02
p.m. A squad car soon arrived, and he directed the officer to the scene of the
shooting.
“It was the worse thing I have ever seen,'' Garry said. “A nice
looking person was lying there on his back. He
wasn't moving, but his eyes were open. His blood ran down the street from the
back of his head.''
Garry said he grew up on streets of Bond Hill, and he has seen a lot, but this
was the first time he had watched
someone die. “It's very sad,'' he commented.
He remembered what the three men were wearing, but he could not describe their
faces. He and Mingo were
taken to police headquarters where they were questioned about the incident.
Garry said he was amazed that no one in the group where the shooting occurred
left, and when they did leave they just walked away as if nothing had happened.
“They were just so matter-of-fact. Maybe some people are getting numb
to the violence in our city,'' he said.
The act of Mingo running toward the group after shots fired was very courageous,''
Garry said.
It took about 10 minutes for everyone to realize what happened, Garry said.
The football players told to hit the
ground and some parents went into the field to shield their sons. Other players
were herded into the southwest
corner of the field, which is protected by a wall around it. Parents began to
take their kids and leave, and after a
while, everyone left, he said.
“Little kids saw this guy dying there, his life stolen from him,'' he
said. “It was traumatic for me as an adult, so it had to be worse for
them.''
Garry said the violence would not cease without an alternative for desperate
people to turn to. “We have to
address poverty,'' he said. “Poverty is the underlying cause. Poverty
breeds hopelessness. People become
desperate when they are hopeless, and desperate people do desperate things.''
“I'm very angry about this,'' Sonya Crear said. “My son was starting
to do the right thing. He's my first born, and now he's gone.''
A family friend, Karla White, said Crear was popular, and he was nicknamed “Yearn,''
because “all of the women yearned for him.''
He played basketball and football in school, and he was starting to learn how
to box, his mother said. He was
involved in activities at the Boys and Girls Club on Rockdale and at Hirsch
Recreation Center on Reading Road, she said.
Prior to the march, Abdul Bilal, of Cincinnati Ceasefire, said those participating
in the protest want people who
engage in violence in the community to hear loud and clear that community residents
do not condone the violence and shooting that are occurring in the neighborhoods.
“There's got to be another way,'' Bilal said. “If you need a job
or you have another issue, come to us for we will help you.''
Mingo took over the bullhorn, saying, “Evil prevails only when good people
do nothing. Negative elements in
this community will not dictate where we have activities for our kids.
Herald sportswriter Ozie Davis knew Crear. “Since Ernest had his son,
he was trying to build a better future- it's sad that he didn't live to do it,''
Davis said.
Other sponsors of the tournament were the Avondale Community Council, Evanston
Community Council, US
Bank, Boys and Girls Club of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Empowerment Corporation,
and Cincinnati Police
Department. The tournament may be rescheduled, organizers said.
Anyone with information about this homicide is asked to call the Criminal Investigation
Section at 352-3542 or
CRIMESTOPPERS at 352-3040. Callers may remain anonymous and may receive compensation
for their
information.
My first painting, little squiggly lights you see with your eyes closed. I owe it all to the robot. Never sell a model of perception short. Shown at 2011 SOS
Gabriella Giffords, 16" x 20", oil on gessoed board, February 19, 2011, Shown at 2011 SOS
Gabriella Giffords, 16" x 20", pencil on gessoed board, February 12, 2011
Liberty, oil on board, 16" x 12", May 2010, Shown at 2006 SOS
Nuclear War, Arnold Schwarzenegger from Predator, 20" x 16", oil on canvas, 2006, Shown at 2006 SOS
The oil painting shows a woman looking up at a floating earth. A snake encircles the earth and is about to strike. Below the earth is a tiger who is about to bite the snake. In the background is a nuclear explosion. Behind the woman is a tall ornate enclosed chair.
Painted for Birdie Bloch, a great patron of Tom's. He painted her portrait several times and in this painting she let Tom do what he wanted. He painted an allegory about the benefits and dangers of Nuclear energy. Tom spent a lot of time at the circus to study the tigers. The bench is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The blast in the background was from a famous nuclear cloud photo.
The painting is an allegory of threat. Painted in 1980 at the end of the Cold War it was meant to show the nuclear treat of the Cold War. The woman represents humanity and the tiger in front of her represents the powers available to her. The chair behind her represents her authority. The Earth represents herself and the snake represents the treat of a nuclear holocaust. Today the treat is different but still there.
Exit Through the Gift Shop: A Banksy Film is a 2010 British documentary film, directed by street artist Banksy. It tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles, and his obsession with street art. The film charts Guetta's constant documenting of his every waking moment on film, from a chance encounter with his cousin, the artist Invader, to his introduction to a host of street artists with a focus on Shepard Fairey and Banksy, whose anonymity is preserved by obscuring his face and altering his voice, to Guetta's eventual fame as a street artist himself. It is narrated by Rhys Ifans. The music is by Geoff Barrow. It includes Richard Hawley's "Tonight The Streets Are Ours" Tom is a graffiti artist, he watched this awhile ago with envy.
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