Twitty

        Reaction to the suspension of Cincinnati's highest-ranking black police officer continued to spread throughout the city Saturday, with the NAACP urging the entire community to pray for Lt. Col. Ron Twitty.

        Sheila Adams, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Cincinnati, stopped short of saying the suspension would cause her group to re-think its decision to bring its convention here next year. But she did say officials would be watching to see if the investigation proceeds fairly and that the process could affect that decision, made just last week after serious lobbying by city officials.

        “I think that we're going to have to see what happens and make a decision on how this is handled,” she said. “I just don't want this to be business as usual.”

        Lt. Col. Twitty, one of four assistant chiefs and a 29-year veteran of the department, was put on paid leave Friday amid allegations that he might not have told the truth about a July 4 wreck that damaged the city-owned Ford Taurus he drives.

        The suspension shocked many because Lt. Col. Twitty is a 29-year veteran of the department with a long record of good work and is the only black officer to reach the rank of assistant chief.

        Particularly in the African-American community, he is regarded as the face of the police force, the go-to guy for good police-community relations. He doesn't walk in the door of any meeting without hugging just about everyone there.

        Saturday afternoon, Norma Holt Davis, NAACP president, said her group, along with the Urban League and the Cincinnati-Hamilton County Community Action Agency, want to be sure that Lt. Col. Twitty is afforded all his rights to due process and that he's not treated any differently than any other officers in similar situations.

        She also asked that the groups be kept informed and that, if he is exonerated, that “that outcome be handled as publicly, to prevent irreparable damage to his career.”

        Lt. Col. Twitty, she said, “stands as an model of what African-Americans might achieve if they work hard and play by the rules of the game.”

        Mayor Charlie Luken said he wanted to emphasize that the allegations are just that, not facts, and that the public should not jump to conclusions until the investigation is finished. People are innocent until proven guilty, he said, and because of Lt. Col. Twitty's reputation, he deserves an “extra-strong” presumption of innocence.

        “Ron Twitty has 80 commendations and probably deserves a thousand,” the mayor said. “There are a lot of people angry because they know the character of Col. Twitty.”

        He said the NAACP's requests for fair treatment for the assistant chief were appropriate and that he would help see to it that the groups were kept informed. He said he is not concerned that the issue would sabotage the Urban League convention.

        “There is no doubt that Cincinnati will be under scrutiny all the time,” he said. “Every move will be analyzed.”

        Many officers, who had begun to hear rumors late last week about the accident, speculated on what it must have felt like for a 29-year veteran to have to hand over his badge and gun.

        Many black officers and community activists vented their anger, saying a man of Lt. Col. Twitty's integrity should not have been publicly embarrassed by Chief Tom Streicher, who held a press conference to discuss the matter.

        They questioned whether the chief would have responded the same way if Lt. Col. Twitty were white, and pointed out that no others recently suspended of their police powers became the subjects of press conferences.

        “Something's not right,” said attorney Ken Lawson.

        Chief Streicher said he handled the situation the way he did because he felt openness was crucial, particularly because Lt. Col. Twitty is a high-ranking member of the police department's command staff. Ms. Holt Davis, a lawyer, conceded Saturday that those factors probably led the chief to act so publicly.

        But the Rev. Damon Lynch III said it appeared the city was trying to “pick off” black leaders. Perhaps he or Scotty Johnson, president of the Sentinels black officers group, would be next, he said.

        “This is a slap in the face,” he said, and another reason the Urban League should reconsider its decision to hold its 2003 national convention in Cincinnati.

        Vice Mayor Alicia Reece disagreed. She spoke about Lt. Col. Twitty, whom she said she has known since she was a little girl, from Dallas, where she was trying to get the National Forum for Black Public Administrators to commit to holding its 2006 conference in Cincinnati.

        The suspension, she said, is an example of why such groups should come here - “so we're not just with one African-American assistant police chief, so we can recruit more to come up through the ranks like he has.”

        She called the assistant chief “more than a man who wears a uniform. He's a man who loves Cincinnati.”

        Mayor Luken spoke with Lt. Col. Twitty on Saturday.

        “He's very religious, very strong,” Mayor Luken said.

        Lt. Col. Twitty can retire with his full pension. He meets the requirements of being at least 48 (he's 51) and being an officer 25 years. That combination makes an officer's pension about 70 percent of his top three years of salary.

        Former Norwood Chief Timothy Brown retired in 1998 after after allegations surfaced that he wrecked his Jeep while drunk and then claimed it had been stolen - after he called a repair shop to have it towed. He was convicted of dishonesty and abuse of public trust.

        Officials have not released the initial report on Lt. Col. Twitty's accident. They say it's part of the investigation, which is being handled by the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office.

        Chief Streicher, who learned about the accident Tuesday, turned it over to Sheriff Si Leis on Friday after conferring with his traffic specialists, internal investigators and Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen. Sheriff Leis and Mr. Allen, he said, will make any decisions on whether the information warrants criminal prosecution.

        Police said the assistant chief reported the wreck, saying it happened in front of his house in Bond Hill. But when officers arrived, they found no evidence at the scene that the wreck had happened there. Chief Streicher also said Lt. Col. Twitty did not report the accident to him, which policy requires him to do.

        The chief, who called Lt. Col. Twitty a personal friend for 25 years, said Friday's suspension was possibly the most difficult thing he's ever had to do.

        “In recent history, Col. Twitty was singlehandledly probably the most influential person the police department has had in the African-American community,” the chief said. “His personal actions, his personal sacrifices have resulted in perhaps some of the most important relationships we've had in the community.”

        But he admitted that a question of the assistant chief's honesty was at the heart of the investigation. He has emphasized this year, after the release of the internal investigation into the shooting of Timothy Thomas which revealed that Officer Stephen Roach told two different stories, that honesty is a fireable offense in the Cincinnati Police Department.

        Spec. Johnson, however, wondered aloud how the chief could have resorted to such a public display.

        “Twenty-nine years of service - you go check his record,” he said of Lt. Col. Twitty. “And he deserved this?”

        Many cited Lt. Col. Twitty's community-oriented style as key to calming the city during and after the April 2001 riots. But his ability to work with the community was his noted strength long before last year.

        In two 1998 performance reviews in his personnel file, he was commended for his ability to relate to the minority community and “to people in general.”

        In one, written by then-Assistant Chief Streicher, Lt. Col. Twitty was credited with having a “unique ability to showcase the police division.” His efforts, it said, resulted in an “extreme improvement” in relations between the department and the public.

        The file lists only four previous accidents in police vehicles - three of which were not his fault and none since 1988.

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