The Cincinnati Enquirer reports here today that:
Fanon Rucker started thinking like a prosecutor when he was a kid growing up in Gary, Ind.Posted by Marcia Oddi at September 20, 2004 02:45 PMHe remembers burglars ransacking the family home, vandals tearing apart his mother's car and neighborhood thugs waking him up one morning as they tried to break in through a basement window. * * *
So when he became a lawyer years later, the first job he took was as a prosecutor for the city of Cincinnati. And when the Nov. 2 election for Hamilton County prosecutor was thrown open by a sex scandal three weeks ago, Rucker jumped at the chance to run.
"If you commit a crime, you need to be afraid," Rucker says. "That's my philosophy."
It's a philosophy he hopes will resonate with voters this fall in a race that pits him against three Republicans - including Ohio Treasurer Joe Deters - who are likely to echo his tough-on-crime mantra throughout the campaign. * * *
Rucker received the unanimous Democratic endorsement Sunday, said Tim Burke, the county's Democratic Party chairman. He has about six weeks to convince voters he's the right man for a job that has been held by Republicans for decades.
"Fanon Rucker is a very solid individual. He's just a good guy," Burke said. "He's going to more than hold his own against Joe Deters."
At 32, Rucker is the youngest candidate in the race, and he's believed to be the first African-American to run for the office.
But Rucker insists his campaign isn't about his age, his race or his party. Instead, he says, it's about how his personal and professional experience makes him the right person for the job.
Although he now does civil rights and criminal defense work, Rucker says he's naturally drawn to the prosecutor's office because of his childhood experience as a crime victim. He's also the son of Robert Rucker Jr., a former deputy prosecutor in Gary who now is an Indiana Supreme Court justice.