Cincinnati police are to investigate allegations officers struck two girls and a woman with bean-bag ammunition in an apparently unprovoked attack even as signs emerged racial violence was subsiding in a city under curfew for a third night.
Police firing beanbag crowd control projectiles - akin to rubber bullets - struck a white woman and two young black girls on Saturday shortly after the funeral of 19-year-old Timothy Thomas shot by a white police officer a week ago.
Witnesses said about five officers jumped out of a police cruiser a few blocks from the church where Thomas's funeral was being held, opened fire from rifles loaded with the bean-bag ammunition for no apparent reason and then quickly drove off
Demetrius Lowry, the mother of a 7-year-old girl hit in the leg by a bean-bag projectile, said: "That could have started a riot right there. We weren't doing anything except walking to a barbecue store when this police car pulled up and the cops jumped out and started firing."
She said her 11-year-old niece also was struck by a bean-bag, leaving a stinging welt on her back. Also injured was a woman from Louisville, Kentucky, who bled from a leg wound.
Minutes later, a large police contingent arrived at a nearby intersection and brandished rifles to disperse a crowd that had congregated after the funeral.
A standoff followed, but no shots were fired as clergymen and officials of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People met police to defuse the situation.
Among the speakers at his funeral was Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, who told about 500 mourners in the church that the shooting of Thomas was "a tragedy, not only for his family, but for the state of Ohio as well."
"I pray today will be the beginning of the healing process," Taft said.
Another 500 or so people listened to the service on loudspeakers outside. They applauded the victim's mother and family when they left the church.
Evidence from Thomas' shooting was to be presented on Monday to a grand jury to determine if the shooting was justifiable. The FBI and the Justice Department have both opened investigations of Cincinnati police practices.