Timothy+Thomas

===Timothy Thomas was a 19-year-old African-American man living in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had an infant son, did not do drugs and was not violent (according to his mothers' knowledge), and on April 7th, 2001, was shot and killed by the Cincinnati police, pronounced dead at 3:02 in the morning. Thomas was the 15th person to be killed by the Cincinnati police, and every single one of them was black. Thomas' death led to rallies held by the people of Cincinnati, leading to days of protest in Cincinnati and a lawsuit, opening up many people's eyes to the racial profiling that was occurring.=== ===It had happened early in the morning on April 7th. Thomas was outside of a club, hanging out alone. A police officer saw him and began walking over. When Thomas started running from the police, the cop chased him, calling in backup. The policeman, Officer Roach, who shot him had arrived in a police car, and without hesitating pulled out his gun and fired a bullet into Thomas' heart. Later, Roach said he thought Thomas had been reaching for a gun, but no weapon was found on the body. At the time of death, Thomas had 14 misdemeaner warrants, mostly for minor traffic violations. Thomas often got pulled over 3 times in one day and ticketed for the same thing- often driving without a seat belt, or without a license. The ACLU noted that it was curious how he was pulled over by cops for these crimes when these are not things you can see very well from a police car- a person has to be pulled over in order to notice that they don't have a seatbelt on, or they don't have their license with them. The question that needs to be asked is why Thomas was pulled over in the first place. ACLU believes that racial profiling was the cause of not only the mass ticketing by the police but also of Thomas' death. Being the 15th African-American to be killed by the police, people began protesting against Thomas' death, and the 5th in 5 months. Two nights of protests, and 6 city SWAT teams were called in. They resorted to shooting pellet-filled bags out into the otherwise peaceful crowds.===

Timothy Thomas, victim of racial profiling.

===Pressure from the community and city council led to the public safety directer and the city manager's resignment. Officer Roach was indicted for negligent homicide and obstructiong official business. His story was inconsistent, saying that Thomas "made" Roach kill him. The Cincinnati Black United Front and ACLU filed a lawsuit against the city of Cincinnati, which was settled in April of 2002. The results of the case led to the establishment of a civilian complaint review board and collective traffic stop data. The Department of Justice had intervened in the case and made a deal with the city. Thomas was an important person in the history of racial profiling because he was a victim of it in a severe case, causing people to open up their eyes to the horrors that were happening because of the racial profiling that was occurring. His unfortunate demise lead to the public being exposed to the fact that racial profiling was occurring, and allowing them to do something about it. Though sad, his death triggered attention that went towards racial profiling being revealed to the community.===