Mudslide

Those people are obviously extraordinarily intelligent. I usually get stuck at the light at McMicken and Vine about 7:40/7:45 AM. The crack whores, having rolled out of the crack houses, are usually stumbling across the intersection with their pimps close behind screaming at them. I gun the engine turning right onto Findlay so I can make the light at Race. I illegally turn left on red if I'm not lucky. I usually always make the light at Elder, but sometimes not. For those standing on the corner wanting to bum a cigarette, my response is to run the red light. I sometimes get stuck at the light at Green Street. Most often, the dope boys have a customer, half the time in a car with Kentucky plates, so they're too busy to mess with me. I always get stuck at the light at 14th Street. It's a short light, probably because of the school. And I always get stuck at 15th then again at Liberty, where I get to watch the "homeless" screw up Washington Park. Or they're drinking their brown bag breakfasts across the intersection in the doorway of an abandoned business. Once I make it to Central Parkway, it's clear sailing after that all the way to 4th Street. I was thinking about buying a Soviet-built BTR-60 and charging tourists to drive them through OTR to view the wonderful German architecture, while it lasts. They can sit in safety in the back and see the tops of the buildings throught the troop hatch, but somehow I don't think the city would let me register the vehicle.

Sure, so long as you can forgive the fact that I think faster than I tupe.

You don't need a "cop on every corner," they just need to be seen once in a while, and they are in the neighborhoods you mentioned. But that has more to do with the fact that influential people in those neighborhoods demand it, just like current and former council members, and other influential people, who live in the Gas-Light District in Clifton expect it. As with most things, it isn't quantity, it's quality. The number of police has nothing to do with it, it has to do with how effectively they are used, and they aren't used effectively here. Their patrol tactics and techniques are non-existent at best.

Things do need to get better, but things here will never change so long as people are constantly comparing the city with other cities. I'm not interested in what other cities do or don't do, because I don't live in other cities. People ought to be constantly striving to make this city better, and they can and without spending exhorbitant amounts of money, rather than merely maintaining the status quo.

All the more reason to be disappointed. It does have an extraordinary skyline, especially when viewed at night from northbound I-75 in Kentucky. However, like so many buildings downtown, they have beautiful architecture on the outside, but are gutted on the inside. In Romania, I used to sit in the park at 3:00 AM, chatting with friends, drinking beer, and playing cards. Sometimes the police would stop to talk. Can't do that here. You aren't allowed in the parks after dark, god forbid you have an open container and be in a park at the same time, and you certainly wouldn't want to be there with the homeless, prostitutes, homosexual prostitutes, drug addicts and dealers.

I think people over look the fact that safety and security are matters of perception, in addition to being a matter of numbers. People have to feel safe, and they don't feel safe down-town and in other places. There is only one thing that will cause people to feel safe, and that is high police visibility, which is non-existent in this city, and which, ironically, is the only way to reduce crime. So now city council wants to hire another 60 officers. I assure you, nothing will change. The best case scenario is that the appalling crime rate will remain the same, worst case, it will increase, which has been the trend every time more officers are hired.

Actually, crime here is very bad. The per capita rate is the preferred model since it allows comparisons between cities of all sizes. For example, in 2004, Chicago had 448 murders, or a per capita murder rate of 0.16 per 1,000 people, to Cincinnasti's 79 murders, which is 0.238 murders per 1,000 people. In other words, your chance of being murdered in Cincinnasti is 50% higher than in Chicago. Or, another way of looking at it, if Cincinnasti had 2.8 Million people, the murder rate in 2004 would have been 667 murders, about 219 more murders than Chicago. Thus, in 2004, Cincinnasti was the Muder Capital of the US, and will probably win again in 2006, since we've already tied 2004. The biggest problem is the police, who are probably among the least competent on the planet. It's astoninshing that Cincinnatians pay such a large amount in taxes for police protection, get nothing in return for the rather overly large police force which constantly hires more police, and on top of that, the police try to slough off their duties onto ordinary residents through euphemistic programs like "Community Oriented Policing." Not only is that my personal opinion, it's my professional opinion, having a degree in Law Enforcement (not the psycho-babble Criminal Justice degrees that prepare people to be prison guards, and probation/parole officers), 16 weeks at a police academy, 8 weeks in advanced investigations, holding the ranke of Detective Sargeant, and having been the operations director for a police station. You could lay-off 600 police officers and still cut crime by 40% here, provided the police are properly organized and competently led. But, that won't happen so long as the police union dictates orders to City Hall and the city continues to promote the inbred pencil pushers who can't think outside the box. About 3 years ago, I set up a video and time-lapse recorder on Chickasaw Street in Clifton. In 7 days, one, just one of Cincinnasti's finest drove down the street. He wasn't patrolling, not driving 59 mph he wasn't (we measured the chain link fence across the street and divided the it took to traverse that distance). He was obviously just cutting through to get to somewhere else. But that's the whole problem. The police here do not use proper patrol tactics and techniques, and they aren't visible. You can't deter crime if you aren't visible. And places like Chickasaw Street and others in town constantly suffer from graffiti, petty vandalism, criminal mishchief, smash-n-grab thefts, larcenies/burglaries, robberies, rapes and other assaults, because of it. The sooner City Hall implements some rather drastic chances, the sooner we'll all see the crime rate drop and feel safer.