The 2001 Cincinnati riots were a series of civil disorders which took place in and around the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio from April 9 to 13, 2001. They began with a peaceful protest in the heart of the city on Fountain Square over the inadequate police response to the police shooting of unarmed African American 19-year-old Timothy Thomas. The peaceful protest soon turned into a march that went in the direction of the victim's home neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine.