Around 2:00 in the morning, a white police officer–who would later acknowledge that the unarmed teenager startled him– fatally shot Thomas once in the chest.

Three days later, the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood was on fire.

Thomas’ death brought to 15 the number of African American men killed by Cincinnati police officers between 1995 and 2001. In the most high-profile of these cases, police mistook Roger Owensby Jr.–a sergeant in the U.S. Army who had no criminal record—for a drug dealer, put him in a chokehold, maced, and beat him. Officers were tried and acquitted.

Thomas’ killing was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

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