In this edition of WYSO Weekend: You’ll hear from a Dayton Police officer who wants to help ease tensions that have surfaced after a year of officer-involved shootings of black men. We’ve got a rundown of MLK events being held over the next week in the Miami Valley, and we'll hear from Community Voices producer Renee Wilde.
- Experts in the courtroom and on the streets gathered at the Ohio Statehouse this week to discuss the state’s progress in ending human trafficking. Statehouse correspondent Andy Chow reports.
- 2014 was fraught with national reports of white officers shooting black men—Missouri, New York, Cleveland, and the nearby shooting of John Crawford III at the Beavercreek Walmart. The details of each of those cases are different but much of the response has held a common thread – a backlash and growing distrust of law enforcement. On Friday, The Dayton Mediation Center and two Dayton police officers continued their efforts to ease the tensions that have arisen locally. At the end of last year two Dayton Police Officers, Zachary Williams and Terry Perdue, who are both black, approached the Dayton Mediation Center with concern over public discourse over the recent events. The center agreed to host a series of community forums like the one that took place this past Friday in Trotwood. The forum was called “Putting the Pieces Together...Police and the Community. Before the event, I spoke with Officer Williams by phone about his efforts.
- Monday January, 19th is Martin Luther King Jr. day. We have a rundown of MLK events in the Miami Valley taking place over the next week.
- On Miami Valley StoryCorps we bring you conversations between local people who went to the StoryCorps booth in Dayton last spring. Today we meet David Fleming who moved to Yellow Springs after Hurricane Katrina. In the StoryCorps booth, he talked with his nephew John Fleming and John’s wife Louise Smith about his childhood in New Orleans and how it influenced his artistic career. *This Miami Valley StoryCorps interview - and many others - can be found at WYSO dot org. Today's interview was edited by Community Voices producer Renee Wilde.
- The legalization of gambling in Ohio is spurring the creation of racinos, which are casinos combined with horse racing tracks - it’s Harness racing we’re talking about – where the horse pulls a lightweight cart with a driver. And the breed of horse most often used is known as a Standard-bred. Ohio is now the second largest producer of the breed. This coming year, more than eleven hundred mares in Ohio will give birth to the next generation of Standard-bred horses. But what happens to all those horses once their careers end? Community Voices reporter Renee Wilde discovered one option for these retired racehorses. And she had a motive. She was looking for a horse to adopt. Renee Wilde is a graduate of WYSO's Community Voices training program. For more Community Voices stories, visit our website, WYSO dot org.
- Some call them an eyesore, some consider them art, but most people probably don't notice the old advertising signs that dot the Midwest at all. OPR's Bill Rinehart does, and takes a closer look at ghost signs in and around Cincinnati.
