Fired Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge will get her chance to appeal her firing on Nov. 30, when she presents her case to a neutral third party in a post-deprivation hearing, city manager spokeswoman Mollie Lair told The Cincinnati Enquirer. The hearing closes a quiet six months since the city fired Theetge in April — and more than a year since the city manager first placed her on leave.
Theetge will present her case before a hearing officer on Nov. 30, Lair told The Enquirer. Lair would not say who the hearing officer is, and she could not provide details on the process other than that it will be led by the city’s law department, The Enquirer reported.
The city fired Theetge in April after a five-month investigation culminated in a report concluding she "has not been an effective leader," The Enquirer reported. Theetge and her attorney, Stephen Imm, appealed, asking for an impartial decision-maker to decide her case, according to The Enquirer. Since then, the issue has grown quiet, and Theetge has not filed suit against the city, as her lawyer had threatened, The Enquirer reported. A message to Imm was not immediately returned, The Enquirer reported.
A post-deprivation hearing is the city’s process for letting a fired employee argue, after the fact, that the firing should not stand. In Theetge’s case, the format she and Imm asked for — a neutral third party rather than a city official — is the format the city is now providing, with the law department leading the process, according to Lair’s account to The Enquirer.
While Theetge waits, the department she led has no permanent chief and no search for one. Interim Police Chief Adam Hennie has led the department since Theetge was placed on leave, and there is no timetable for whether Hennie will become the permanent replacement or someone else will be hired, Lair told The Enquirer. "There is no search," Lair told The Enquirer. Hennie is the leader of the department, she said.
The firing grew out of a fight over crime in the city’s urban core. City Manager Sheryl Long placed Theetge on leave and eventually fired her amid concerns about how the police were addressing crime in the city, The Enquirer reported. Cincinnati leaders and Theetge faced criticism in the summer of 2025 as crime spiked in the city’s urban core, and a double shooting in October 2025 on Fountain Square again pushed the city into trending posts on social media, The Enquirer reported.
Theetge’s side tells it differently. Theetge and her attorneys have accused Mayor Aftab Pureval and Long of making her a scapegoat ahead of the November 2025 election, The Enquirer reported. That accusation — leadership failure on one side, political scapegoating on the other — is the argument the Nov. 30 hearing officer will now be asked to weigh.
The leadership question is not the only public-safety fight running in Hamilton County this fall. County law-enforcement leadership has also pressed the governor on gun policy, as NewsForce247 reported when the Hamilton County sheriff urged Gov. DeWine to reject the looser gun bill SB 214, and Cincinnati’s school-transportation record drew scrutiny in our coverage of emails showing bus staff did not strap in a Cincinnati student who died in September.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: the confirmed facts are the hearing date, Nov. 30, its post-deprivation format before a neutral hearing officer, and the law department’s role in leading it, all as Lair described them to The Enquirer. What is not known is the hearing officer’s identity, which Lair would not provide; whether the hearing will produce a public decision or a timeline for one; and whether Theetge will still sue if the hearing goes against her — her attorney had threatened suit, The Enquirer reported, but none has been filed.
The stakes run past one chief’s job. Cincinnati has now gone more than a year with an interim chief, through a crime debate that helped define a city election, and the November hearing is the first formal test of whether the firing itself was justified. A ruling for Theetge would reopen the question of who should lead the department; a ruling for the city would close the appeal she has pursued since April.
What happens next: Theetge presents her case to the hearing officer on Nov. 30, The Enquirer reported. Until then, Hennie continues as interim chief, and the city says there is no search — and no timetable — for a permanent one.