“I was surprised by some of the candor and openness of many sources,” says Bronson. “The mayor, Ken Lawson, FOP leader, Keith Fangman, the police chief and many others had amazing stories to tell of things that were going on behind the scenes that we never heard about.”
He portrays the riots as a series of errors that led to a human catastrophe. As with most disasters – from the Titanic to Katrina – there is never one thing that fails; a true disaster is generally composed of several systems that fail in sequence. He shows a checklist of errors from the police to city hall to the outraged community activists to the governor. All sides were plunged into a fighting match that was taken advantage of by out-of-towners looking to cause inexcusable mayhem. And the blame fell squarely on the police.
Bronson takes us from scene to scene – from present to past and back. He even adds in the suburban white perspective of the riots in the form of four golfers having a conversation. The result is a story that reads partially like a police report and partially like a historical narrative. The added ingredient, love it or hate it, is Bronson’s political view that seeps out every now and then.
But the Bronson paradox takes a surprisingly critical shot at (of all things) the media. He takes issue with the media’s “herd mentality”. In other words, a news network may take one moment out of context, filming it without explaining what’s happening… and the other networks will follow along. Bronson feels that this brand of reporting was far too “lenient and uncritical of the riot leaders” while being “harshly accusing against the police.”
Of the riot’s aftermath Bronson said, “All the consultants and federal monitors and judges have not reached the people who rioted. They are still alienated, angry and violent.” However, he does not expound on this topic in the book.
His construction of the events is engrossing. Once I began reading the book, I could not put it down. He captures the cultural aspects of Cincinnati that an outsider needs to understand the lead up to the riots through a historical tour of the Queen City.
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But what is distracting is his over-reliance on similes. He has a tendency to stretch his similes like a bungee jumper stretches taffy. And there are times when he uses several per page. It has the effect of taking the attention off of the power of the moment with a non sequitur visual.
This book manages to stretch past any agenda that one might project on columnist Peter Bronson. His aim is not the best-seller list nor is his aim to bolster his own credentials. His focus was on the research and on reporting aspects of the conflict from those who were in the middle of it.
He’s very honest about why this book is important.
“Many people want to forget what happened.” He says it would be a grand mistake to sweep the events of April 2001 under the rug. “Virtually every institution in the city – politicians, government, business, media – let the city down and made mistakes. We only have to look at the current headlines to see how the lingering riot hangover of violence and lawlessness is still damaging our city.”
