Cleveland Police intend to “follow the law” when it comes to protestors who openly carry guns and they’ve made changes to their security plan since the police massacre in Dallas. Those are some of the details that came out of a press conference on Wednesday, four days out from the start of the Republican National Convention.
City leaders, including Mayor Frank Jackson and Police Chief Calvin Williams, unveiled their new Joint Information Center, a space where public information will be disseminated to members of the media during the week of the convention. It’s in the basement of Public Auditorium on Lakeside Avenue. It’s also staffed by members of the secret service, Cleveland EMS and staffers working directly with the convention.
Police said they are now fully-staffed with officers from agencies across the country and have plans in place to address any type of security threat.
Tall metal so-called global fences have already started going up downtown. Those fences will keep people out of the downtown secure zone, including protestors, some of whom have expressed an interest in open carry.
Ohio law allows it and despite their opposition to the law, Mayor Jackson and Chief Williams said they will follow it, but will closely monitor those with weapons exposed.
“You can’t menace a person with that weapon. You can’t brandish that weapon. You can’t point it at people,” Chief Williams said, "There’s a lot of things that just because you carry openly, doesn’t mean you can pull that weapon out, or that you can show that weapon or brandish that weapon and we’ll make sure people stay within the parameters of what’s allowed and what’s not.”
Meanwhile, the chief hinted they plan to allow protestors to walk city streets, even without proper permits to do so, as long as they aren’t creating safety issues. On Monday, officers on bicycles rode with a group of Black Lives Matter protestors as they walked down city streets, at times, clogging traffic.
“If it gets to be a safety issue, then we either move people to the side of the street where we can have traffic flow, or we move them out of the street,” Chief Williams said.
Then there’s the issue of office safety, post-Dallas. Chief Williams said there’s been changes made, but he wouldn’t offer specifics.
“Any time something happens around the country, especially as something as violent as Dallas, as tragic as Dallas, you know it causes all of law enforcement, it causes all of this country to kind of step back and take a look at what we’re doing it and how we’re doing it,” he said, “To make sure we do everything possible to make sure a situation like that does not occur again.”
Mayor Jackson said his office will offer twice-daily press briefings from the JIC beginning Sunday and extending through the week.
City leaders are also encouraging anyone who sees suspicious activity to report it to the FBI by calling 1-800 CALL-FBI.
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