Civil rights leader, victim's brother, visit shooting site

by JOE MILICIA
The Associated Press

CINCINNATI - Standing amid the broken glass, flowers and Bible that mark the site where an unarmed black man was shot by police, civil rights activist Al Sharpton yesterday led mourners in prayer and urged that justice be done.

Earlier in the day, the New York-based Baptist minister told an Easter congregation in Cincinnati's New Friendship Baptist Church that all violence - Cincinnati's street rioting and what Sharpton termed police violence against black citizens - must end.

"This is going on all over this country. President Bush needs to look at Cincinnati as a wake-up call," Sharpton said during a sermon in which he urged Washington to take the lead in improving relations between police departments and blacks. "They want peace. Well, the price of peace is justice.

"There must be one standard of justice for everyone, or there's no standard of justice for anyone," he said.

Mayor Charles Luken rolled back the start of last night's curfew to 11 p.m. The curfew had been scheduled for 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. the prior three nights after Luken declared a state of emergency, but the mayor noted there had been a night of relative calm Saturday after the burial of Timothy Thomas, 19.

Minutes after Sharpton stood at the spot where Thomas was shot, Thomas' brother Terry, 17, walked up and touched the concrete wall where someone had written in spray painted "RIP Tim." Others hugged Thomas as he looked down at the flowers, Bible, football and other items that well-wishers had left on the ground.

Thomas said he wants the officer who shot his brother to be sent to prison.

Police and the Hamilton County prosecutor are investigating the shooting, and the FBI has begun its own inquiry. The officer, Stephen Roach, 27, is on paid administrative leave. Roach, who is white, has not been charged.

County Prosecutor Michael Allen has said a grand jury could begin hearing evidence in the case as soon as today. Allen declined last week to reveal what Roach has told investigators about the shooting.

The April 7th shooting led to three days of rioting in predominantly black neighborhoods that stopped when the mayor instituted the curfew Thursday.

Thomas, wanted on 14 warrants for misdemeanors and traffic violations, was shot while running from police. Two of the warrants were for running from black police officers on previous occasions.

He was the fourth black man killed by police since November in this city of 331,000 - 43 percent of whom are black.

Since Thomas' death, more than 700 people have been arrested for looting, arson, vandalism and curfew violations.