The firing of Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge by City Manager Sheryl Long is not an act of decisive leadership. It is an act of political self-preservation.
After stringing along a decorated public servant on administrative leave for seven months, the city officially ousted Theetge on April 23. Faced with mounting backlash, Mayor Aftab Pureval and Long rushed to the microphones that same day to launch a desperation PR offensive. They leaked a termination letter and alleged that Theetge demanded $7.5 million to quietly resign.
Mayor Pureval called the $7.5 million figure a “nonstarter.” But the residents of Cincinnati should be asking a different question: What is a 35-year, unblemished public safety reputation worth once politicians drag it through the mud?
The hypocrisy of the ‘settlement’
The mayor admitted that the administration was “open to settling this short of termination.” Let that sink in. The city manager’s termination letter accuses the chief of “insubordination, inefficiency, and unsatisfactory performance.” Yet, if City Hall truly believed she was a danger to public safety, they would have fired her for cause immediately.
Instead, they tried to buy her silence.
They wanted a quiet, politically convenient exit. When Theetge refused to roll over and slapped a $7.5 million price tag on the destruction of her good name, the administration panicked and fired her.
This isn’t about her performance; it’s about a mayor and a city manager trying to buy their way out of a political disaster they created.
Policing for ‘perception’ vs. data-driven reality
The specific allegations in Long’s termination letter completely validate Theetge’s defense: She was fired because she acted like a cop, while the administration wanted her to act like a politician.
The letter attacks Theetge for resisting the “summer safety plan” and refusing to mandate overtime to flood Downtown and Over-the-Rhine with visible officers. By Pureval’s own admission, data showed that violent crime was actually down citywide. But because high-profile incidents were driving a negative public narrative, the mayor demanded cops on corners to change the “perception,” even offering double time to do it.
Theetge − a data-driven, 35-year veteran − rightly recognized that burning out an already stretched police force to create security theater for the mayor’s optics is bad law enforcement. Politicians care about perception; police chiefs care about reality.
Long’s letter further attempts to smear the chief by complaining that she went to the Cincinnati Public Schools Board of Education and handed them an “invoice” for the police resources spent dealing with disorderly students. Far from “poor judgment,” this is exactly the kind of financial stewardship taxpayers want.
Why should the CPD budget be drained to subsidize a school district’s disciplinary failures?
A tale of two resumes
If we are going to evaluate leadership in this city, we need to compare the resumes of the two women at the center of this controversy.
Theetge holds a Master’s degree from Xavier University and has spent 35 years in the trenches of the Cincinnati Police Department. She has served in District One Patrol, Central Vice Control, and Criminal Investigations. She has led high-stakes hostage negotiations and broken the glass ceiling as the first female police chief in the history of the department.
Long holds a Master’s degree in marketing. She spent a decade in private-sector sales and real estate marketing before transitioning to local government as the communications director for North College Hill − a tiny city of roughly 9,000 people. She was fast-tracked into Cincinnati City Hall and handed the keys to a city of 300,000 residents.
To be blunt: A background in real estate marketing does not equip a city manager to second-guess the tactical, operational, and deployment strategies of a 35-year veteran police chief. Theetge spent three decades making life-and-death decisions for the Queen City. Long’s foundational expertise is in corporate communications. And this firing is, at its core, a public relations stunt.
A pattern of scapegoating
Long has a documented history of axing veteran public safety leaders to deflect from City Hall’s own turbulence. Just a year prior, she abruptly fired Cincinnati Fire Chief Michael Washington − another dedicated, long-serving first responder − using the same vague playbook. He is currently suing the city in federal court, represented by the same attorney now defending Theetge.
When a city manager fires the head of the fire department one year and the head of the police department the next, the problem is no longer the chiefs.
Ignoring the charter and federal help
City Hall’s desperation is evident in their blatant disregard for the rules. Long’s letter claims Theetge can be fired without cause based on an old appointment document. This directly contradicts the Cincinnati City Charter, which explicitly states that after six months, a chief can only be removed for cause. City Hall is literally attempting to rewrite the charter to execute a political hit.
Furthermore, if Cincinnati’s leadership was genuinely interested in solving the urban crime spike that started this mess, why hasn’t Cincinnati asked for or accepted federal assistance? When cities like Washington, D.C., and Memphis faced similar post-pandemic surges, their leaders actively partnered with the Department of Justice to secure federal task forces. Cincinnati’s leadership chose to ignore federal lifelines, isolate their department, and hand the blame to their top cop.
By firing Teresa Theetge, City Hall has sent a chilling message to the rank-and-file officers of the CPD: No matter how long you serve, or how clean your record is, politicians will throw you under the bus the second the poll numbers drop.
The taxpayers will inevitably foot the bill for the impending lawsuit, but the true cost is the loss of a phenomenal leader. The residents of Cincinnati should demand better.
If I were a betting man, I’d bet the city will lose (or settle this suit) for millions more.
John Mirlisena lives in Loveland.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Theetge firing is one big public relations stunt | Opinion
Reporting by John Mirlisena, Opinion contributor / Cincinnati Enquirer
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