Cincinnati's riot is almost as much a part of life in the city today as it was when it began three months ago. Politicians still argue about what led to the violence. Police still feel as if they are under siege. And community activists still debate racial issues on talk radio.

OUR RIOT ARCHIVES

Gary Mallin, co-owner of Leader Furniture in Over-the-Rhine, inspects broken windows on April 11. Gerald Mallin, co-owner and Gary's brother, says business still hasn't returned to normal.

        Even now, the riot easily creeps into casual conversation. It affects decisions about where to get a drink after work and what restaurant to go to for dinner. It shapes opinions about which neighborhoods are safe and which are not.

        For some, the riot's legacy is even more personal:

        A police officer in Mount Auburn fears he will start another riot if he defends himself against a knife-wielding suspect.

        A businessman near Findlay Market worries about the future of his life's work because customers are afraid to shop at his store.

        A young woman in Over-the-Rhine struggles with the knowledge that she was attacked by a mob because of the color of her skin.

        Their stories reveal just how much damage the riot did to this city. And how much it continues to do every day.

React, don't think
        The man pulled out a butcher's knife as soon as he reached the busy intersection, right in front of Officer Matt Martin.

        “Drop the knife!” the officer shouted.

Officer Matt Martin, fearing more riots, hesitated before he shot a man theatening him with a knife. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        Officer Martin, a five-year police veteran, was trained for moments like this: Protect yourself and others. Use the gun if necessary. React, don't think.

        But Officer Martin was thinking. He thought about the riot that raged through Cincinnati just one month earlier. He thought about the police shooting of a suspect that sparked the unrest.

        And he wondered: “If I shoot this guy, am I going to start another riot?”

        In that instant, the man raised the knife and ran toward him. Officer Martin pulled the trigger when he was just five feet away, striking the man in the leg.

        The man he shot that day in Mount Auburn was not seriously hurt, and the incident did not trigger another riot.

        Still, the 28-year-old officer worries about his hesitation, and about the second-guessing that he and his fellow officers feel they have been subjected to in the three months since the riots.

        “It really is on everybody's mind,” Officer Martin says. “You really don't want to think it will affect you during life-and-death situations, but it does. It affected me.

        “It's hard to concentrate on doing what you're taught to do when you're being scrutinized for everything.”

        The scrutiny includes a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the police division, which was prompted in part by criticism from elected officials and community groups.

        Police have responded with an unofficial work slowdown. Arrests since the riot are down 35 percent and revenue from traffic tickets is only about a third of what it was last year at this time.

        Officer Martin says police are less effective — and the community is less safe — when officers are afraid to do their jobs.

        “If an officer hesitates next time,” Officer Martin says, “we could be going to another police officer's funeral.”

        He's been to four police funerals since joining the force, three in Cincinnati and one in Dayton, Ohio.

        He has thought about those funerals often since he confronted the man with the knife in May. His family has thought about them, too. He sees the worry on his wife's face every time he leaves for work.

        She always worried, he says, but she knew he was trained to protect himself and she knew he would act quickly when he had to. Now, she isn't so sure.

        “It's been hard on her,” he says. “It's been hard on my family.”

        Officer Martin still works an evening shift in some of the neighborhoods hit hardest by the riots. On patrol, he sometimes drives past the scene of the shooting in Mount Auburn.

        He wonders if he will hesitate the next time someone comes at him with a weapon.

        He wonders what will happen if he does.

Business suffers
        Gerald Mallin hears the same question almost every day when he answers the phone at Leader Furniture in Over-the-Rhine:

        “Is it safe down there?”

        The callers are customers who have stayed away from the Elder Street store in the aftermath of the riots. They know Leader was in the middle of the worst violence, and many are afraid to come back.

        Mr. Mallin has owned the store with his brother for nearly 40 years. He always tells the nervous callers the same thing.

        “I spend all my days down here,” he says, “and I think it's safe.”

        Unfortunately for Mr. Mallin, many of his customers don't share his confidence. Like many stores hit hard in the riot, Leader has seen business drop sharply.

        He's cut back on store hours, closing at 5:30 most days instead of 7, and he's noticed a drop-off in the number of folks who stop by to browse during the day.

        For Mr. Mallin, the downturn since the riot is about more than business. He's invested four decades in this store and he doesn't want to leave.

        He likes the variety of customers he draws, from downtown to the east side to the west. He doubts he'd get that mix in a suburban strip mall.

        But his commitment to the neighborhood came with a price during the riot. “We were ground zero,” he says.

        The store lost most of its inventory when rioters smashed through the big front windows and looted everything from lamps to a 61-inch projection TV.

        Mr. Mallin says too many businesses were damaged and too many are at risk of closing if the city doesn't soon invest more in the neighborhood.

        He's confident the riots won't run him out, but those phone calls from worried customers make him wary of the future.

        “Will it come back as strong as it was? Will it be as good as it was?” Mr. Mallin pauses, looking over the customers in his store on a weekday afternoon.

        “I don't know,” he says. “I don't know.”

Beating still hurts
        Roslyn Jones no longer wakes up with a headache every morning.

        The bruises on her face are nearly healed and the dull, throbbing pain over her left ear is almost gone.

        Soon, her doctors say, Ms. Jones will recover from the beating she endured during Cincinnati's riot.

        But the doctors don't see all of her injuries.

        They don't know that the deepest wound was inflicted before the first blow was struck, when Ms. Jones was singled out by an angry mob because of the color of her skin.

        “It still bothers me,” she says. “It still hurts.”

        Ms. Jones is African-American and albino. She learned as a child that she stood out because of her fair skin, and that some people would judge her based on nothing else.

        She also learned to accept who she was, even when others did not. She ignored the occasional joke or insult. She went to school, started a career, had a baby.

        In the life she had built, skin color didn't seem to matter anymore.

        It mattered a great deal, though, when rioters surrounded her Honda Accord as she drove home through Avondale on April 11. The 28-year-old mom had just finished an evening class at the University of Cincinnati and was on her way home to Over-the-Rhine.

        Someone in the crowd shouted something about a “white girl.” Ms. Jones had heard white motorists were being targeted by rioters, but she didn't think the com ment was directed at her.

        Moments later, rocks smashed her windshield and a brick slammed into the side of her head. As a man pulled her to safety, she heard him yell to the crowd: “She's black! She's black!”

        The rioters stopped attacking Ms. Jones, but continued to smash her car for another hour or so.

        She's played the scene over in her mind many times. She asks herself why the crowd didn't see she was African-American, and why the color of her skin could matter so much to anyone. She thought her days of worrying about such things were long past.

        “I've been this way my whole life,” she says. “I know the trials and tribula tions I've been through to keep my self esteem, to feel good about who I am. To have this happen, it's like a smack in the face.”

        In the months since the riot, Ms. Jones has watched her city grapple with the kind of racial issues she's lived with all her life.

        Mayor Charlie Luken formed a special commission to find ways to improve race relations. A federal mediator began hosting public meetings to address concerns about racial profiling by police. And the FBI launched an investigation into racially motivated hate crimes, including the assault on Ms. Jones.

        Although those efforts continue today, Ms. Jones has not participated. Her pain is too personal, and her memories of the riot are too fresh.

        She recently spoke to FBI agents about her case, but she isn't even sure she wants them to find her attackers.

        “In one sense, I'm kind of glad I don't know,” she says. “In a way, I don't want to know why someone would act out in such a violent way.”

        Sometimes, she says, she thinks about what would have happened if she hadn't been pulled to safety that day in Avondale. Or if she hadn't been there at all.

        “If they did it because they thought I was Caucasian, then who's to say what they would have done to a woman who really was Caucasian. Maybe I saved somebody else from getting hurt worse. Maybe I was a blessing for someone else.”

        For Ms. Jones, the greatest blessing has been her 8-year-old daughter, DeVauna.

        Unlike the adults Ms. Jones has spoken to about the incident, DeVauna could not conceive that one person would harm another because of skin color. When Ms. Jones explained what happened in Avondale, the little girl just shook her head.

        “Why would they do that?” she asked. “I just don't understand people sometimes.”

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