Hundreds of police officers spent their Friday night training for the Republican National Convention by the Lake Erie waterfront.
NewsChannel 5's cameras caught police officers from Cleveland and a few from Akron suiting up and shooting off smoke bombs and tear gas just behind FirstEnergy stadium.
It's training that would have happened -- and has been happening -- in any case.
But after the horror in Dallas, it's clear it is even more crucial.
"We're with Dallas as the rest of the country is with Dallas. We have to do something about gun violence in this country," said Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams during a news conference Friday afternoon.
Chief Williams said the ambush of officers heightened their awareness -- and will heighten security surrounding the RNC, now just 10 days away.
While he said he couldn't get into specifics, he said one immediate change is switching from one-man patrol cars to two-man patrol cars so every officer is paired up for the foreseeable future.
"Right now, that's the only thing we're doing that we can discuss," Williams said. "But there are a lot of other things we are doing to make sure not only our police officer but our citizens are safe that I can't go into detail about right now."
But there are plenty of other ways to actually see the city working to keep you safe. One is metal boxes planted around town that detect biotoxins in the air, checked every 24 hours.
We also saw hundreds of public utility workers from Cleveland Public Power, Dominion, FirstEnergy and the water department all training by the Port of Cleveland Friday night.
The city also launched a tipline to encourage people to call if they see anything suspicious. It was meant to be introduced closer to the RNC, but Chief Williams said it seemed necessary now. It will be monitored by multiple agencies.
The tipline number is 1-800-225-5324.
