The 2001 Cincinnati riots were a series of civil disorders which took place in and around the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio from April 9 to 13, 2001. They began with a peaceful protest in the heart of the city on Fountain Square over the inadequate police response to the police shooting of unarmed African American 19-year-old Timothy Thomas. The peaceful protest soon turned into a march that went in the direction of the victim's home neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine. The period of unrest was sparked after 19-year-old Timothy Thomas, an unarmed African American man, was shot and killed by Cincinnati Police Department Patrolman Stephen Roach during an attempt to arrest him for non-violent misdemeanors, most of which were traffic citations. Tensions were already high in the city following a series of other incidents involving police brutality and racial profiling, including thirteen deaths. Protests erupted into four nights of unrest, with instances of recorded property destruction in Cincinnati, objects thrown at police officers by demonstrators, and vandalism and looting of businesses before a city-imposed curfew eventually ended the unrest. It was ultimately determined that the period of unrest caused $3.6 million in damage to businesses and another $1.5 to $2 million to the city. A subsequent community boycott of downtown businesses had an estimated adverse impact of $10 million on the area. Incidents of violent crime rose in the downtown area for several years thereafter. The city worked with the community and police to improve training and policies to prevent incidents like that in which Thomas was killed. Background The initial incident and much of the subsequent unrest began on Fountain Square in Downtown Cincinnati. Much of the subsequent unrest took place in Over-the-Rhine, the neighborhood of the victim immediately north of Cincinnati's central business district. A 2000 demographic profile of the neighborhood showed a resident population of 7,368, of whom 5,974 were African American. The profile also showed significant poverty, unemployment, and a lack of development in the area for several decades. Some 1,667 of 3,594 housing units, or more than one third, in the neighborhood were vacant. About 96 percent of the occupied houses were renter-occupied. The neighborhood had a concentration of African Americans, who otherwise made up 40 percent overall of the 331,000 residents of the city. At the time of the protests and growing unrest, the median income in Over-the-Rhine was $8,600 compared to $26,774 for