About 7 p.m. Saturday evening, uniformed and undercover Cincinnati Police officers rolled up to J-D’s Honky Tonk Bar on Buck Street in Camp Washington to conduct an investigation of the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club.
Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Streicher said as soon as they got out of their vehicles, they were met by gunfire. Police returned fire and, in the end, one club member is dead, another member injured and two undercover Cincinnati Police officers were shot (one officer was hit in the hip, the other in the leg. Neither of the injuries required surgery). Streicher says he will not be releasing the officers’ names at this time because the officers are part of the undercover unit.
Fourteen members of the Iron Horsemen were taken from the bar for questioning and a number of them were taken into custody. Chief Streicher would not elaborate on the nature of the investigation into the club’s activities.
Spring Grove Avenue was shut down late into the night Saturday in the area of the bar as a SWAT team conducted a sweep of the bar to be sure no one else was inside. There were also officers doing a canine search of a nearby wooded area to be sure there was no one hiding out.
Streicher was quoted as saying, “There’s nothing bad going on with the police and the club itself. Motorcycle clubs are what they are. They do what they do and we do what we do. Occasionally, there’s a clash, as there was tonight.”
This is the fourth shooting involving police in the past three days. On Thursday a Woodlawn Police officer was shot at in Lincoln Heights. Cincinnati Police say Thursday and Friday officers were shot at in Winton Terrace. The officers were not injured in those shootings.
