Cleveland police union asks for suspension of 'open carry' in wake of Baton Rouge, ahead of RNC
Cleveland, Ohio (CNN)The head of Cleveland's largest police union is calling on Ohio Gov. John Kasich to temporarily restrict the state's gun laws during
this week's Republican National Convention following Sunday's shooting
in Louisiana that killed three officers and wounded at least three
others.
"We are sending a
letter to Gov. Kasich requesting assistance from him. He could very
easily do some kind of executive order or something -- I don't care if
it's constitutional or not at this point," Stephen Loomis, president of
Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, told CNN. "They can fight
about it after the RNC or they can lift it after the RNC, but I want him
to absolutely outlaw open-carry in Cuyahoga County until this RNC is
over."
So-called "open carry" gun
laws in Ohio allow for licensed firearm owners to wear their weapons in
public. With the exception of a small "secure zone" inside and around
the Quicken Loans Arena, residents, delegates and protesters are legally
permitted to walk around the city -- including within its 1.7 square
mile regulated "event zone" -- with any firearm not explicitly banned by
the state.
Kasich,
responding to the request, said: "Ohio governors do not have the power
to arbitrarily suspend federal and state constitutional rights or state
laws as suggested."
"The bonds
between our communities and police must be reset and rebuilt -- as we're
doing in Ohio -- so our communities and officers can both be safe.
Everyone has an important role to play in that renewal," he said.
Earlier, he released a video offering his condolences in the wake of the Baton Rouge attack.
Loomis
also said officers here would begin ramping up inspections and
oversight over anyone who is holstering a weapon entering the downtown
area, where the Republican convention is scheduled to begin on Monday.
"We
are going to be looking very, very hard at anyone who has an open
carry," he said. "An AR-15, a shotgun, multiple handguns. It's
irresponsible of those folks -- especially right now -- to be coming
downtown with open carry AR's or anything else. I couldn't care less if
it's legal or not. We are constitutional law enforcement, we love the
Constitution, support it and defend it, but you can't go into a crowded
theater and scream fire. And that's exactly what they're doing by
bringing those guns down there."
The
first key test for law enforcement comes Monday, as the convention
opens, when Citizens for Trump and Black on Black Crime, Inc., which has
marched in the past with Black Lives Matter-affiliated protestors, are
among the many groups that are set to protest.
Citizens
for Trump is scheduled to hold a rally expected to attract more than a
thousand people to Settler's Landing Park, less than a mile from where
Republican delegates will be gathering at the Quicken Loans Arena.
"We've
hired special forces teams for security," the group's executive
director, Tim Selaty, told CNN last week, declining to specify who would
provide that extra security. "The Secret Service is well aware of what
we're doing and they're going to be provided with everything they need
to work in tandem with the local local law enforcement."
Alfred
Porter Jr., president of Black on Black Crime, Inc., a four-decade-old
anti-violence group, told CNN it would not alter a planned demonstration
Monday in Cleveland's downtown Public Square.
"Nothing
has changed because I still feel the same way, our message will still
be the same," Porter said on Sunday afternoon. "We refuse to let anybody
who has a simplistic or violent or hateful message stop the type of
message that we have been sending out for accountability. Our message is
not to go out there and start murdering police officers."
Black
Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson, who is not in Cleveland, told
CNN, "The movement began as a response to violence and a call to end
violence. And that call remains as true today as they did yesterday and
it will tomorrow."
The Cleveland Police Department did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Convention
CEO Jeff Larson said that organizers remained confident in the security
measures currently in place and did not expect Kasich to take any new
action.
"The open carry laws in
Ohio haven't changed recently, it's been in effect for quite some time,
they've had a number of big events that have taken place with open carry
without any issues," he told reporters Sunday afternoon. "They've been
planning their security around that issue."
The
union has also reached out to Police Chief Calvin Williams, asking that
officers -- some of whom have been positioned alone and without
vehicles -- be grouped together on their patrols, especially outside of
the downtown security zones.
"We're
going to be doing things differently (after today's attack)," Loomis
said. "Right now, the chief of police thinks it's a good idea to have
one officer without a car standing at a post in various intersections
all around the city? Thirty blocks from downtown? I had a guy last night
standing out there by himself without the benefit of protection of a
police car. Or partner. That is absolute insanity to me. There is no
reason for that. We are going to demand that the police chief -- at a
minimum -- make sure that we have three officers working together,
watching each other's backs."
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