As a lifelong resident of Cincinnati, I am disgusted with the behavior of the current City Council. Once again Council member Christopher Smitherman shows that he is interested only in giving the appearance of power and promoting his very narrow agenda. I thought that council was supposed to represent the city as a whole, not just a segment of the population. Smitherman is quoted as saying that the police hog-tie African-Americans. I can recall no instance of the police of this city hog-tying its citizens. If hog-tying had happened, I am sure our media would have been all over the story.

In the article on the front page in Friday's paper ("Chief cancels 'Cops' after 2 days"), it is stated that both Mayor Charlie Luken and City Manager Valerie Lemmie were supportive of Chief Tom Streicher's decision to have Cops film in Cincinnati.

Given Smitherman's history since being elected to council, facts and reasonableness never get in the way of his rhetoric and agenda. The result of the Cops show in Cincinnati would have been our Police Department being portrayed in a positive light. This, of course, goes against Smitherman's agenda and is the real reason he did not want Cops here. Thanks, Smitherman, for once again making Cincinnati a laughingstock.

Steve Ruwe, Price Hill

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Look across river on how to progress

After hearing about City Council's decisions and comments regarding such topics as Lunken Airport and, most recently, the Cops controversy, I have to wonder why our "strong mayor" doesn't have the fortitude to stand up to the punks on council and get things done. Cops could have been a positive step forward for our city putting the highlight on our hard-working officers.

We as a community need to look forward and work together so we can make things better instead of reliving the mistakes of the past. This apparently is a lesson that our neighbors in Northern Kentucky learned a long time ago. Perhaps we need to look no further than across the river to see real progress. Is there a leader in Cincinnati up for the challenge? I hope so.

Joni Mataitis, College Hill

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Reece, Smitherman offer only obstruction

Although somewhat trivial, the latest dust-up regarding the Cops TV show is telling ("Chief cancels 'Cops' after 2 days," May 28). Once again we are reminded that council members Alicia Reece and Christopher Smitherman have nothing to offer but obstruction.

Tarun Chattoraj, Hartwell

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Streicher, so-called 'strong' mayor caved

We are deeply disturbed that our chief of police Tom Streicher capitulated to the whining of our self-serving City Council in the matter of the Cops TV show filming in Cincinnati. We are even more disturbed that our so-called strong mayor didn't have the guts to finally take a stand on something that he was reportedly in favor of. Oh, wait, he was out of town.

Now we're waiting to see all the back-pedaling by City Council as they fight to avoid the negative fallout. What should have been a feather in our cap has once again been turned into a debacle.

If council had to be up in arms over anything, it should have been over the NBC Dateline episode on racial profiling that aired a few weeks ago. But we guess our city leaders would rather have our police force thought of as "jack-booted thugs" than portray them as the dedicated public servants that, for the most part, they are.

And once again the victory is to the small-minded, loud-mouthed, so-called "community leaders" who are afraid that we'll wake up and realize that the bad guy is not the one in the uniform, but the one standing on the street corner with a gun in one pocket and a bag of crack cocaine in the other.

Beverly and Garrett Taylor, Mount Auburn