Cleveland, Ohio, has spent $50 million preparing for next week’s Republican convention, earning the city a lawsuit and much criticism in the process. But as the fraught relationship between police and black communities was thrust back into the national spotlight last week after police killings in Louisiana and Minnesota, the ensuing protests, and the sniper attack in Dallas, many fear the convention could descend into chaos.
Police officials, who for months have said they are confident they have the best possible security plans in place, said they were adjusting them following the Dallas attack, though they have declined to elaborate. “We have got to make some changes without a doubt,” Ed Tomba, the city’s deputy police chief and head of convention security, told Reuters. “We will have plenty of people watching over different locations. We are beefing up the intelligence component, too. They are going to be very, very active.”
Cleveland’s press office, which is handling all convention-related media requests, including to the police, did not respond to requests for comment, but Jay McDonald, the president of Ohio’s Fraternal Order of Police, who’s not directly involved in convention security, told The Intercept that the city has been preparing to handle all protests “professionally.”
“I certainly think that there’s a sense of uneasiness — I would feel unease — but they’re going to do their jobs,” he said. “The day after the murders in Dallas, officers all across the country got up and went to work and served their communities just like they did the day before, because they’re professionals and they do their jobs, and they’ll do their jobs in Cleveland as well.”
But official reassurances have not dissipated fears of violent attacks against police like the one in Dallas, particularly after three people were arrested Tuesday in an alleged plot to shoot officers in Louisiana — or concerns that anxious police officers might respond violently to peaceful protesters as they did in Baton Rouge.
At least one event, a march led by civil rights activist Al Sharpton, was called off following last week’s unrest. “In the current uncertain environment nationwide, we are concerned for police officers who would be charged with protecting our marchers and advocates as well as for the safety and well-being of our march participants,” Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said in a statement.
With some exceptions, the Cleveland Division of Police has generally responded to past protests with restraint, but it has nonetheless come under scrutiny for its discriminatory practices and excessive use of force in everyday policing, and is perhaps most infamous for the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November 2014. In December 2014, the Department of Justice issued a damning report on Cleveland’s policing. And last year, as part of a settlement with the DOJ, city officials formed the Cleveland Community Police Commission, made up mostly of civilians, to develop plans for comprehensive police reform in the city. Mario Clopton, co-chair of the committee, told The Intercept that the city has promised a “community policing” approach to the convention, with officers on bikes and in regular uniforms greeting people and helping visitors out. Riot gear, police told the commission, would be deployed only “if a situation requires it to be used.”
“I don’t fault police officers for having that on their mindset. In my day job I’m an educator and every time a school shooting happens I’m more alert,” he said, referring to the possible impact of the Dallas attack on officers policing the convention. “Officers are human too so there’s a risk of just having an emotional response to the incident last week. However that is where the training is supposed to come in.”
But police reassurances that they are ready for the convention have done little to appease activists and civil rights advocates who accused the city of being badly prepared for the influx of visitors and protesters, and who said surveillance tactics deployed in the weeks preceding the convention — including law enforcement showing up unannounced at local activists’ homes — have already crossed a line.
In the aftermath of the Dallas attack, police departments nationwide called for more military equipment and training, including robots capable of delivering lethal force such as the one used against the Dallas shooter. As images and videos emerged last week of protesters in Baton Rouge meeting a disproportionately equipped police force, demands for the demilitarization of police departments were renewed.
In Cleveland, officials are estimated to have spent at least $20 million in federal funds on equipment ranging from bicycles and steel barriers to 2,000 sets of riot gear, 2,000 retractable steel batons, body armor, surveillance equipment, 10,000 sets of plastic flex cuffs, and 16 laser aiming systems, which a technology retailer describes as being used for “night direct-fire aiming and illumination.” And while the city has not fully disclosed all the equipment it has acquired for the convention, Ohio’s chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which has been monitoring the preparations, raised concerns that police might be planning to deploy Stingray devices, used to monitor and track cellphones, as well as a Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), a sonic crowd-control weapon that emits painfully loud sounds.
Activists and organizations who have been pushing for police reform criticized the push to militarize police departments. “Dallas was a horrible tragedy, but we’re talking about one guy with a gun and some body armor. It’s unfortunate some are taking that as an opportunity to push back against the demands of the movement,” said Scott Roberts, a campaign director for Color of Change, a racial justice group that this week launched a campaign to defund abusive police departments. “If you look at the images coming out of Baton Rouge, you see that police departments are overly prepared for these types of incidents, I don’t think that’s a solution frankly.”
“My biggest concern about what’s happening in Cleveland and the $50 million the federal government has given them for public safety is what happens afterwards,” Roberts said. “We’re concerned about Cleveland law enforcement being more heavily militarized in the future when there are protests, and cameras from around the world are not there. All the equipment just stays in place, and you end up with a whole different degree of militarized law enforcement and surveillance long after the convention leaves.”
Quicken Loans Arena is decorated to welcome the Republican National Convention on July 11, 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Photo: Angelo Merendino/Getty Images
Dozens of groups from across the political spectrum have applied for permits to protest at the Republican convention — and many others are expected to do so without asking for permission. The groups range from Trump supporters to anti-war activists and Occupy Wall Street veterans. Some local groups calling for police accountability and racial justice are also expected to show up, but at least until last week, organizers under the coordinated but diverse movement for black lives were focusing most of their energy on the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, where representatives are planning to introduce a policy platform to a party they believe will be more receptive to it. Some, wary of the possibility of violence, have decided to skip Cleveland altogether.
“I have heard from some activists, What is the value of going to the RNC? Put yourself and your people in danger when it’s clear that those folks are not interested in engaging with us?” Roberts told The Intercept. “I know people are looking to Black Lives Matter and the movement for black lives to be out protesting, confronting the police, but really in the last year we’ve spent a ton of time being into the solutions we want, and strategy.”
The nationwide protests sparked last week by the killings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota were in many ways reminiscent of similar actions that spontaneously erupted in Ferguson, New York, Baltimore and other cities in 2014 and 2015. But the more recent protests are now relying on a network of local and national groups that have grown increasingly connected, coordinated, and strategic. “Two years ago, when Ferguson happened, I was immediately on the phone with so many people saying, What do we want? What are we going to do? We have all this energy,” said Roberts. “Now we’ve been preparing, not necessarily expecting a moment like this, but trying to intervene in dialogue and pushing forward a vision. We’re just in a different place, we have a lot more clarity about what we want to say right now.”
According to the ACLU of Ohio, which sued Cleveland and won a settlement easing restrictions on protests, the convention should offer an opportunity for the pain manifested last week to be discussed publicly and safely. “The way that policing and racial tensions have been highlighted lately underscores the need to have this space where people can have the freedom to speak and express themselves,” said Steve David, a spokesperson for the group. “These are conversations that are touching people all across the country and it’s really important, when all eyes are going to be focused on Cleveland, that folks have a space where they can speak up and be heard.”
Clopton, of the Cleveland Community Police Commission, hopes local law enforcement will allow that space. “The United States was kind of turned upside down last week. There is anger and frustration on all points, and that’s all valid. We need to use that anger and frustration and funnel it into progressive change,” he said. “The idea is not to go back into our individual corners and stare each other down. It’s our job as citizens to exercise our rights, and it’s the job of the police to make sure that everyone is safe while doing that.”
So, everything is business, militarization of the police is business, but we don’t know from whom they ordered all of that? Who profits from militarization of the police? I tried to check who are owners of Boeing, general Dynamics, etc, but always the same companies/banks own them and banks are owned by similar companies, and we don’t know who is behind bank and investment company…
The conventions are just part of “election theatre”–the more violent and chaotic, the bigger the box office draw (TV viewers, media sensationalism, etc. etc.) Yawn.
Best to just stay home, and on election day quietly vote third party. This is our revolution.
To late to back out and cancel ?.? the mistake is theirs and the cost of the foolishness…….talk after it is over – F A I L U R E is the first word that comes to mind
I won’t beat around the bush like many do. I hope the place burns to the ground along with massive riots and a few murders. It will be a just end to the republican party.
As I read the comments here, I cannot believe we live in the same country. We most certainly do not share the same set of values. I value life and country but what I see from most comments here is a desire for anarchy and a country where the strongest makes the rules. You people need to read a few history books about the middle ages. Not the romanticized Robin Hood type of book, read a real history with real accounts of actual conditions. I am pretty sure none of you actually want this country to end up in that condition but that certainly seems to be what you are advocating.
The Middle Ages were not without government. Local warlords very much controlled people’s behavior, levied taxes, and dealt severe justice to those who stepped out of line.
The strongest always make the rules, or they would be suggestions.
I wonder how much this one will cost……beyond the actual cost the one in NYC cost millions for peaceful citizens arrested and detained in un-sanitary conditions…..NO-ONE wants to talk of that – sweep it under the table the people do not count. We have a republican that wants to deport Muslims / but didn’t say anything of freedom of religion – or anything of their citizenship….
THE GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE PEOPLE IS NOW ON VACATION ONCE AGAIN – TO AFTER LABOR DAY…
so far they have refused to hold hearing for a new Supreme Court Justice – JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED – THE HELL WITH THE PEOPLE
It’s all about the branding.
Under the windswept flag a tiny elephant balances along a neck of a half submerged guitar.
The full list of loonie exclusions is here: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/14/politics/cleveland-convention-guns-event-zone/index.html
You know what’s NOT on that list? Printer toner! It would be interesting to observe whether the police are truly limited to “only” 88 things banned for nearby residents, or whether they stop a person from receiving bringing in wholesale quantities of various-colored printer inks for … manual refilling their printer, of course.
If the game is security precautions, then people should play that game. Make the police put thousands and thousands of items on the list. Make them admit that they’re simply stopping the residents and asking to see everything they have and know exactly what they’re doing with it. Make them openly start styling themselves as wardens and screws. Let the world see them for what they are.
Over $50 MILLION in government/tax dollars so that a bunch of pasty spastics can feel ’secure’ while they crown Donald Effing Trump their King- but it’s NOT socialism…naaaahhhh
Maybe a very perverted form of socialism. They’re stealing our wealth, not sharing it.
“Freedom’s just another word for
Nothing left to lose.”
“Winchester Cathedral, you’re bringing me down.
You stood and you watched as my baby left town.”
The reals strength of an enemy lies in being able to demoralize and divide your forces. And every time a riot is broken up by the police the enemy wins, because the police just like the people rioting are not any part of the.0001% that have bought and destroyed our Republic.
We need to bring the police flowers and they need to have the wisdom to accept them and join with their fellow brothers and sisters to finally take charge of their destiny, thus ending the oppressor’s self-serving control.
In order to analyze this correctly, you have to understand that the police are and always were the army of the rich. Our version of cops started in England, protecting the rich from robbers while they traversed the British roads.
The establishment pays cops well, gives them great benefits, and gives them almost ultimate immunity from prosecution for just about anything, as long as they don’t bite the hand that feeds them. So getting them to join us is a lot more difficult than you make it sound.
Difficult yes impossible no, and it has happened before. The problem then could be that the military steps in to fill a police void of service to the oppressors.
We need to treasure each movement forward as each inspires another and another.
After all the oppressors took control one state, one bill and one phase of propaganda at a time.
Why are comments turned off on Robert MacKey’s article “Did Rupert Murdoch Choose Britain’s New Prime Minister?” ? No new comment has been published for more than 24 hrs.
They’re not.
I think everyone just stopped reading Mackey articles, tbh
Strange game, the only winning move is not to play.
There is a no-fly zone, activists are vowing a ‘day of rage’ before the RNC even gets started. They have stated they wind up on Sunday before the convention. I don’t think that will happen once they are there. What was Obama and BLM discussing for 3 hours at the Whitehouse? One would hope he’s telling them to cool it, but something tells me that’s not the case.
The first time I remember major illegitimate police actions at a political convention for presidential nominations was 1968 in Chicago, where I lived at the time. A commission created by then governor Scott Walker determined that the police rioted, not the demonstrators (no shit!).
Starting with these illegitimate containment zones, this stuff is just more police state crap in service of fascism, the latter being government run by large corporations. Containment zones? Really?!! We used to be outraged about and laugh at that concept, now it’s widely accepted, even by the demonstrators.
Wake up people! We live in a fascist, war-mongering police state. Weak-kneed demonstrations are not going to accomplish anything significant. If major change is going to be accomplished nonviolently, we need to get into the streets and stay there until that change happens. And by getting into the streets, I mean disrupting things: blocking building entrances, roads, etc. Make it impossible for the machine to function or the machine will continue to eat our planet, including you!
“The police are not here to create disorder, they’re here to preserve disorder.”
~Richard J. Daley
The best thing that anyone could do, with respect to either convention, is to simply ignore them. Conducting a pro-civil rights, or pro-environment, or pro-choice, or pro-immigration demonstration at the republican convention will only serve to mobilize Trump’s base and provide sympathy for him. All the more so if there is violence.
Let the democrats and republicans have their conventions, but do not tune your TV to any channel that carries them. Let their corporate sponsors take a financial bath, let their filthy messages go unheard.
Agree completely.
You’ve mentioned support for Jill Stein, which I share. I thought you might be pleased to know (if you didn’t already) that donations to Stein increased nearly 1000% since Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton, and that the brilliant and passionate Cornel West has come out with this statement:
“This November, we need change. Yet we are tied in a choice between Trump, who would be a neo-fascist catastrophe, and Clinton, a neo-liberal disaster. That’s why I am supporting Jill Stein. I am with her – the only progressive woman in the race – because we’ve got to get beyond this lock-jaw situation.”
Nay, I don’t think they should be ignored. That’s easy but sterile. There is a right response, brilliant and effective; a way to hijack these things into a moment for teaching and doing good; a voice of God whispers it for all to hear, and somewhere, there is someone willing to listen. The babble of my evils may hide it from my ears, but I shall not believe it is not there.
Absolutely.
Whenever I read or hear someone discussing
democrats versus republicans
as if either arm of the cyclops is better or worse,
I begin wondering how they can be so delusional and I
begin to hear the sound of machines droning on unattended.
I find myself mixed between feelings of pathos and apprehension
because I know how they will attack my character for not
reinforcing their desperately disciplined delusions.
Two opposing groups, both carrying guns. What could possibly go wrong?
Alcohol.
Not even gonna need alcohol, IMO.
Talk about setting the bar low! If there aren’t massive riots with dozens injured then it’ll be considered a successful convention. Yay GOP!
So far the story sounds pretty amazing, and not in a good way. The containment zone is laid out on a map at http://www.wired.com/2016/06/cleveland-will-create-city-within-city-keep-rnc-civil – it includes for example Cleveland State University, where a Republican intern living on campus just got busted over receiving pot. But it’s not just pot that’s contraband – canned foods and bicycle locks and lumber are on the list. So there’s a whole zone of people including these kids living on campus and I don’t know how the heck they’re supposed to arrange biking out of the zone when they can’t have a lock for their bike. I mean, it used to be that people thought a few things like pot and cocaine and child porn and cherry bombs and bear spray were illegal, but they had a right to “everything else”. Now it seems like everything else has shrunk to nothing – the residents only have a right to whatever the government decides to let them have that week. Scratch those plans to cook pork and beans!
Skip the animal abuse – “pork” also known as mutilated flesh from an abused pig – and stick to just beans. Then we won’t have to keep wondering why we have racism, sexism, sadism: all stemming from our abuse of other species.
Why would there be, and who would be violent at the Cleveland Convention?
Not the invited guests.
And why are all the uninvited there,instead of at the Democratic Convention,where the incredibly corrupt and racist (numerable utterances )pos whore of zion will be anointed at the traditionally of the people,but now a power crazed warmongering big business craphole of dishonor and anti-working class bankster loving fraud party?
The republicans owe the minorities squat,they get no votes from them,they are all for the democrats who give them shite,since 72?
I believe Trump will help all peoples and colors and creeds in America,by lifting our economy out of the globalist neolibcon disaster of corporate greed over peoples need,but some can’t see past their own beam in their own eye.
For some reason I keep thinking about that biker rally shootout in Waco, Texas a year ago that left 9 dead, and how nobody was charged because a lot of them were cops.
Um – sorry, “some” were “allegedly” cops.
Here is an article that looks at how much both the gun rights and the gun control side of the debate have paid to support both presidential candidates and members of Congress:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2016/06/gun-rights-vs-gun-control-wheres-money.html
This data explains why, despite the emotional response that occurs after a mass shooting, there is little motivation in Washington to change anything when it comes to gun ownership in the United States.
Ohio isn’t spending millions on only gear and equipment; they are paying California to send riot-trained CHP officers to assist. Unknown to me is how much money they are giving to how many states to supplement their personnel.
The CHP has not been sent outside of CA since Hurricane Katrina which draws unfortunate comparisons.
Well, as punk rock band The Plasmatics correctly pointed out, “A pig is a pig, and that’s that!” CHP or whatever, who cares? They’re all violent thugs acting on behalf of the rich and their establishment, and many of them are racist to boot.
Many of them were not racist when they started the job, anyway.
Wrong. They were, and the job “proved” to them that their reactionary and racist beliefs were correct. Their racism was simply latent.