Stephen Loomis heads the Cleveland police patrolman’s association.
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“I don’t stand by”.
The four-day convention has been a challenge for police, who have arrested 22 people while trying to keep a series of tumultuous protests from metastasizing into large-scale violence.
A United States Secret Service agent closes a security fence, as preparations are made for the Republican National Convention, Saturday, July 16, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. Ramped up anxieties following another catastrophic terror attack on French soil present another challenge to a police department now under federal oversight after the Justice Department determined in 2014 that it had engaged in “a pattern or practice of the use of excessive force”.
As of Tuesday evening, police said five people had been arrested since the start of the convention.
Two officers were assaulted during the flag-burning and suffered minor injuries, police said.
In many of those open carry states, a permit or license is required to carry firearms in public view.
Even some fierce gun advocates say it’s stupid for civilians to walk around flaunting firepower.
City officials have been hoping for a mostly trouble-free convention to help fix the reputation of the Cleveland police, who are operating under federal supervision after a U.S. Justice Department investigation found a pattern of excessive force and violations of people’s civil rights. But recent events, including a terror attack in Nice, France, last week and the fatal ambush of police officers in Dallas and Louisiana have heightened concerns about what might happen in Cleveland. Two years later, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy, was killed by a white officer while playing with what turned out to be a pellet gun.
The chief, deputy chief, and several officers have spoke with Rascon about this.
Earlier, blocks away from the arena, a right-wing religious group lifted a banner reading “Jesus is angry with you sinners”, while kissing lesbians mocked their message, helping turn Cleveland’s Public Square into part-carnival, part-debate floor.
Seventeen of the arrests came Wednesday, during a melee that erupted during a flag-burning outside an entrance to the convention arena. The bicycle officers have literally kept protesters in line, turning their bikes sideways to keep opposing protest groups apart.
The city set up a specific parade route for protesters but it hasn’t stopped some groups from blocking downtown streets at rush hour like this group on Chester Avenue yesterday afternoon. Hashime said he wanted to become a police officer someday. He gets to understand. Not like the other people who stay in the office.
That shooting, coupled with the fatal police shooting of another black man in Minnesota a day later, triggered protests in USA cities over police conduct.
Jesse Gonzalez, 26, of Lakewood, Ohio, carried a rifle on the Public Square while wearing a camouflage-style “Make America Great Again” hat.
OH law allows people to carry firearms in the open. “And that’s exactly what they’re doing by bringing those guns down there”.
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Gonzalez said he has had “really, really super-friendly conversations” with officers inquiring about the type of weapon he has. So far, he said, the police have been “really professional”.
