Why Rodney Hinton Jr. Killed A Cop
Part II: After watching his son get murdered by police, a man took justice into his own hands.
Now that all the facts have been examined, it seems appropriate to consider the situation in its entirety. Eventually, when this goes to trial, more information will come out on both parts of this story. This did not get the airtime that it deserved, and that’s not an accident. As we mentioned in the previous piece, the media likes to portray perfect victims and evil monsters, rather than complex individuals with valid experiences.
Therefore, we must look at this without the preconceived bias that police are automatically benevolent and truthful. Instead, we begin at the so-called radical starting point that the police, as an institution, are fundamentally unjust. There is no lack of commentary reiterating the police department’s opinion; the exact perspective that serves to benefit the most from a docile public that doesn’t scrutinize its behavior. The argument for police abolition has already been made, the scholarship has been illustrated, and the premise revised; the solutions are clear. Deconstructing this inherently racist and violent arm of the state begins in the minds of people who are willing to break the cycle of indoctrination.
On May 2nd, 2025, Rodney Hinton Jr. and his family were called to a meeting with the Cincinnati Police at 9:33am. The purpose of the meeting was to explain that Rodney’s son, Ryan, had been shot to death by police the day prior. Cincinnati Police showed Rodney the footage of Ryan being chased and shot in the back and side by police. The footage was obviously distressing and infuriating, as the body cam video doesn’t clearly show Ryan as a threat to either officer. The police argue that Ryan was running and pointed a gun at the officer, a claim that the video doesn’t support. Less than 20 minutes into the meeting, Rodney abruptly left, upset. The rest of the family stayed about another hour, and then they all left the station. Rodney was too upset to eat with the family and instead took a nap at home for a bit. At 12:41pm, the family goes with Rodney to the station to pick up his car. Rodney, now in his vehicle, leaves the station at 12:44pm, drives around for 5 minutes, returns to the station, and then drives away again at 12:50pm. About 15 minutes later, Rodney sees Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Henderson directing traffic, he pulls into a turning lane, waits for oncoming traffic to clear, floors the accelerator, and fatally hits Henderson. The car then crashes head-on into the base of a light pole.
An attempt to save Officer Henderson was made, but he died shortly after. Hinton suffered a laceration on his head, and he was brought to the hospital before being placed into police custody.
Henderson was not involved in the murder of Hinton’s son. Henderson had just recently retired but was working on special duty that day. Hinton has since been indicted on two counts of aggravated murder, one count of felony murder, and two counts of felony assault. The prosecutors are also brazenly seeking the death penalty, something only made possible because the victim was a police officer. In Ohio, capital punishment has been rarely pursued in recent years, highlighting the state’s aggressive prosecution of this case. Only 0.2% of all homicides committed in the United States result in capital punishment, showing the elevated status police officers have as victims.
During his arraignment on May 3rd, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department showed up to intimidate Hinton. About thirty-seven officers stood in a line in the courtroom with menacing looks, watching over the hearing. They weren’t there for security because they weren’t bailiffs, as most courts only use one or two. They were there for spite and nothing else.
In the face of this, Hinton did not accept this ridiculous performance. When he was being led out of the court, Hinton kept his chin up, giving the same look back to the officers. “He gonna be gone forever,” Hinton said to one of them.
On May 6th, for Hinton’s bond hearing, at least fifty-three cops showed up in uniform again for no other reason than to occupy the gallery as a show of force. Hinton’s family, who hadn’t seen him since before the incident, thus had to sit four rows back as officers took up most of the seats.
The cops made sure to bully his family as well. Rodney’s brother walked up to the glass in the gallery and knocked on it to get his attention. The cops made a scene, all standing up as a few officers pushed him out of the courtroom. With emotion in his voice, he yelled, “That’s my brother, man!” In the hallway, in tears, he said, “I just want my brother to see me. My brother can’t see me?”
The police department now faces a lawsuit for this intimidation attempt, along with alleged abuse, though it is unlikely to succeed. Despite providing so little footage regarding the killing of Ryan, the department had plenty of body camera footage to share of Rodney in custody in response to the lawsuit. The video provided by Law&Crime Network shows police moving Hinton in and out of cop cars and interrogation rooms. Hinton stays silent the entire time and cooperates. So far, there doesn’t appear to be any abuse done to him in custody.
Of all the cops who showed up, only three were black, excluding the bailiff. Cincinnati’s police force already fails to represent the city’s racial makeup, being 66% white in a city that is only 48% white. The Sheriff’s Department, who was at this hearing, doesn’t publish the racial representation of its officers. Still, Head Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey has even championed improving diversity over the past few years.
Assuming the Sheriff wasn’t lying and the department is somewhat diverse, it’s statistically absurd to call it a mistake. This dramatic racial disparity in the officers who showed up for this stunt is not an accident. This was a deliberate display of white supremacy.
What happened with Hinton was a case of spontaneous revenge. Hinton had to watch the murder of his own son on video and know that the person responsible almost certainly would not face any repercussions for it. The next three hours went by with him in a volatile state of mind, and Hinton happened to encounter a cop to take revenge on.
Hinton’s lawyer, Clyde Bennett, argues that his mental state was one of temporary insanity caused by extreme grief made worse by existing mental health conditions. Bennett says, “This case, in my mind, is a clear-cut, classic case of a person being mentally ill at the time they committed the offenses.” The condition he mentioned, he believes, triggered the episode.
The aggravated murder charge is the highest homicide charge in Ohio, and the prosecution must prove the act was premeditated. So far, it seems very clear that this was a sudden act of aggression, not something that Hinton thought about for more than a moment.
Even if Hinton’s mental state was clear, bringing the death penalty for a single isolated murder is a flagrant overreach by the state. Not only do cops get qualified immunity from prosecution when they kill people, but when cops are victims, they get a special privileged status. It’s a double standard. The death penalty is already fundamentally immoral and an abuse of the Constitution, but the state also uses it to elevate itself. The asymmetrical application of the death penalty shows our country’s unequal bedrock, where the murders of politicians, cops, and CEOs are worth more than the average citizen. There would, by definition, be no such thing as an assassination if everyone were equal.
It’s easy to think of this in binary terms, whether Hinton was right to take revenge against the cops or not. For the sake of this essay, that question is more or less irrelevant. What matters is that this is the consequence of an unjust system. This is what happens when police can kill with impunity. Ryan could have escaped, and none of this would have happened. It only took the police less than 48 hours to find and bring the other three boys into custody. If Ryan escaped, he would’ve been brought into custody, and he would’ve received a trial, and justice would’ve been served. Ryan had no prior convictions, so depending on the circumstances, he may have received a reduced sentence, perhaps he would have been proven innocent. In the likely scenario Ryan Hinton was guilty however, he would not have received the death penalty for auto theft, but that’s exactly what the officer sentenced him to in that moment: death with no possibility of appeal.
Rodney had to watch his son be chased down and shot five times in the back by cops. A video where his son poses no clear threat to the officer. He watches as his son runs away in fear. He watched as the cop chases him down and shoots him five times, as his son poses no threat to them. He watches this in a police station, surrounded by cops who make no apologies for his son’s murder. The department wasn’t sorry, and Rodney knew it. Rodney watched during his whole life as black boys and men across America kept getting murdered by police with next to no consequences or systematic change. He saw the murder of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Stephon Clark, Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Patrick Lyoya, and now, Ryan Hinton. Rodney knew that there wouldn’t be justice for his son, and it sent him into a spiral.
So imagine if that were your son. They’re the one person you’ll always give the benefit of the doubt to, the one you’ll always protect, the one you’d kill for. If you, for a moment, put yourself in his place, experiencing what he experienced, thinking what he thought, you’ll confront that maybe you would’ve done the same.
In instances like this, empathy becomes dangerous. Once people can empathize with someone labeled a pariah, the state’s legitimacy is invalidated. And once that happens in enough minds, then the state’s supremacy can finally be uprooted. That’s why this story is too dangerous to talk about, why the establishment media renounced it and avoided critical discussions about it.
The lesson here is not that Ryan or Rodney are good or perfect, because in real life, there’s no such thing; good and evil doesn’t exist. It’s that tragedies like this will keep happening until the system that causes it is dismantled or significantly changed. It’s a system where justice is systematically not being served because the police can protect themselves with qualified immunity and feel no restraint when using a gun that can end someone’s life.
Speaking at the family’s press conference, grandfather Rodney Hinton Sr. asked us all to have empathy, “I want to give condolences out to the officer that got killed. I’m going to ask for forgiveness, and I’ve been praying hard for the officer that killed my grandson, I’ve been praying hard for him and his family… Please, everybody, just try to forgive everyone.” Two families wouldn’t have to be grieving right now if not for our barbaric criminal justice system. So we ought to fight for a better world, one that respects the dignity and life of all people, not uphold the status quo that continues to cause so much misery.