Talk-radio buzzes about it every day: the first black assistant Cincinnati police chief, off the job after a car accident. The NAACP urges fairness. The black officers group says they've never seen such undeserved disrespect. The National Urban League tells the city to forget it, members will not be here for their 2003 convention after all.

        It's a controversy that started with a minor car wreck but branched out from questions of honesty and the impact on the already tenuous relationship between black residents and police officers, to the definition of a fender-bender.

Lt. Col. Ron Twitty received a hug from Sharon Armstrong during a youth rally at an Avondale church last spring. (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

        And at the center of it stands Lt. Col. Ron Twitty, a guy many people probably knew little about until his 2001 city-owned Ford Taurus ended up July 4 with a flat tire and a chunk taken out of the bumper. His boss, Chief Tom Streicher, with whom he has worked nearly 30 years, suspended him with pay, saying he questioned the assistant chief's claim that a hit-skip driver damaged the car.

        Since then, the 29-year veteran has been adding up the accolades from the community. People are coming out of the woodwork to emphasize his character and integrity. Scotty Johnson, president of the Sentinel Police Association, a group of black officers, called him “one of the most honest men on the planet.” Others remind that the man's past isn't at issue here; just what really happened to the car.

        Meanwhile, his friends say, he's been playing a lot of golf, a game his lawyer says he's already pretty good at.

        Lt. Col. Twitty hasn't spoken publicly about his situation since he was suspended July 12 with pay. His lawyer, former federal prosecutor Sharon Zealey, thinks it's better that way. But many of his friends and supporters don't hesitate.

        “He's a premier golfer,” said Capt. Michael Cureton, commander of District 2 and a long-time friend and co-worker since the early 1970s when he was a cadet riding with the then-new Officer Twitty. “I always remind him that I once beat him on one hole.”

        He and other friends brag about Lt. Col. Twitty's long history of coaching baseball. Vice Mayor Alicia Reece remembers those days, too. Lots of her friends growing up were coached by him.

        Capt. Cureton called his friend “a workaholic in terms of meeting citizens, talking with citizens and discussing community and law-enforcement issues. He's one of our great living Cincinnatians.”

Hometown roots

        Lt. Col. Twitty, who will turn 52 on Aug. 11, graduated from Woodward High School in 1968, and attended Ohio State University. He returned to Cincinnati after a year in Columbus, working as a laborer bailing paper and stripping boxes at Litho-Carton & Container Corp on Mitchell Avenue. From there, he took a job in 1970 with Hilton-Davis Chemical Co., where he worked in chemistry and accounting. He left there in June 1973 to become a police recruit.

        Patrolman Ronald J. Twitty, Badge No. 7, started patrolling in District 4. He went back to college too, earning an associate degree in business administration from the University of Cincinnati in 1977.

        He spent time in District 3 also before being promoted in 1981 to sergeant, a rank that took him through Districts 1, 2 and 4 and to the Internal Investigations Section. He became a lieutenant seven years later, then a captain in 1994.

        In 1998, he became one of four assistant chiefs and the first African-American.

        He led the department's patrol bureau for 2 1/2 years before being transferred in November to command investigations, including some of the most high-profile parts of the department, such as homicide and personal crimes. His salary is $111,000 a year.

        His personnel file includes notations that members of the community wrote more than 80 times during his career to thank him for things he did, like helping a church in 1995 use part of Rockdale Avenue in Avondale for an outdoor church service, and in 1991 for helping prevent an attempted suicide. The file includes no disciplinary mentions. The FOP contract requires that those, if there were any, be removed after three years.

        For at least the past five years, his performance evaluations have stressed his ability to connect with people, particularly people in the black community. Chief Streicher, when he was an assistant chief and Col. Twitty was a captain, noted that Col. Twitty's efforts as the police chief's ombudsman resulted in an “extreme improvement in relations between the division and various communities.”

        Though “ombudsman” is no longer his official title, Col. Twitty has remained that. Even suspects being arrested will tell officers they know him or their mother knows him or they go to his church. He is the face of the Cincinnati Police Department in the black community.

        He was the only voice among the top command staff last year during the campaign over Issue 5, the referendum voters approved that will allow the department to look outside its ranks for a police chief the next time, to say he thought going outside for leadership wasn't such a bad idea. Even with it, he said, it doesn't mean someone inside couldn't get the top job.

        After his suspension, rumors swirled that Col. Twitty's attitude regarding Issue 5 might be partly why he was treated in a way the Sentinels black officers group continues to describe as disrespectful. Others on talk radio, where the suspension was a hot topic all week, suggested maybe the FOP, which lobbied hard against Issue 5, had it in for the assistant chief.

        Keith Fangman, FOP first vice president, says that's ridiculous.

        “Why would we do that?” he said. “We genuinely like the guy. Everybody likes Col. Twitty.”

        Neighbor Dave Simon, who lives next to Col. Twitty's red brick Bond Hill duplex apartment, says just about the same thing. They have the Twittys over for dinner and an occasional drink, he said.

        “He is a great guy,” Mr. Simon said. “He seems to genuinely love people. The idea that he might have done something to set this up is so inconsistent with everything we know about him.”

        He's among the neighbors who got a letter from Col. Twitty's attorney. It asks if they heard anything — “no matter how insignificant” — early July 4 that might explain what happened to the car as it sat parked on their street. Lt. Col. Twitty says he does not know what happened to the vehicle, that he went outside just before 7 a.m. on his way to golf with friends and found it damaged.

        Ms. Zealey said the assistant chief's sobriety is a “non-issue,” but she said last week it was too soon to discuss what he was doing the night before he discovered the damage. The time he spent with fellow officers at Fricker's, a “Fun-Food-Sports-Spirits” place on Goodman Avenue in North College Hill, is among the details being investigated, she said Friday. Spec. Johnson said some Sentinels members were with him there.

        The damaged car, suspension and subsequent outcry leave Mr. Wright, a former assistant county prosecutor, thinking about what he learned from Col. Twitty during those old Little League days and what might come of the investigation. He also wonders what effect the way the situation has been handled will have on the boycott against the city, and thinks the city's actions might help galvanize the boycott.

        “But I don't want to say that because he was my baseball coach and he's a great guy, that he's infallible, or he's the pope,” he said. “He's human. He's capable of making a mistake.

        “And if it's shown he made a mistake, he'll have to face the music about that.”

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