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The March Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon was hosted by Simply Living, with Chuck Lynd, director of Support Ohio Local Economies (SOLE) as the moderator. Simply Living is a local membership organization that offers the community a way to live simply and sustainably in cooperation with others and with nature. They offer workshops,events, a marketplace and partnerships with businesses and organizations.
“As a fact finder I need to know answers to some of these questions. It’s not going to be sufficient for you today to simply say, ‘somebody else is investigating, I can’t comment.’ Yes you can comment and yes you must,” said Judge Alegon L. Marbley during Wednesday’s (Feb. 24th) hearing.
Attorneys representing protesters in the federal protester lawsuit Alsaada et. Al. vs. City of Columbus questioned former Chief Thomas Quinlan on Wednesday for several hours, asking him who had made final decisions on pepper spraying and firing wooden bullets at protesters during the early days of George Floyd protests downtown.
The lawsuit charges that ineffective training and vague policies resulted in many individual officers to go rogue against mostly peaceful protesters who had the right to assemble and express free speech.
The suit also claims Chief Quinlan failed to offer meaningful orders against using excessive force before the protests and failed to stop the use of excessive force as the protests continued.
In a white-dominated Columbus old-money suburb, another left-leaning government official is being targeted by a secretive group with an obvious right-wing bent.
Expressing or acting on progressive views in one of Central Ohio’s suburbs can, for example, get your Juneteenth celebration picketed. This happened to a group of Upper Arlington (UA) teachers last year. The “protester” was an ultra-conservative UA resident who was inciting likeminded residents to dox and harass Black Lives Matter supporters in UA through an unsearchable invite-only Facebook group called “UA Golden Pride.”
The February Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon started with some songs from local musician/activist Bill Cohen. He gave us a sample of the type of music and trivia we will find during his Annual Valentine's Concert to benefit Central Ohio Folk Festival, live-streamed on the “Bill Cohen Sings” Facebook page,Sunday, February 14, 7pm. Facebook Event
Bill will sing popular songs from the 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, tunes made famous by John Denver, the Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke, James Taylor, Bing Crosby, Patti Page, Eagles, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, and others.There will be a lighter side too, with fun trivia questions about romance.
Admission will be free but donations are welcomed.
On a recent frigid early morning in a cramped, small-town Kroger twenty minutes outside Columbus, a long line twists and turns near the in-store pharmacy, one of 2,200 in-store pharmacies Kroger operates.
The line is somewhat socially distanced, mostly middle-aged men, some wearing camo, others sporting Harley Davidson logos, some have brought their own folding chairs. Fights have nearly broken out in the past over losing a place in line.
But this line of a dozen or so is not waiting for the vaccine. Kroger’s in-house state-controlled liquor store is mere feet from the pharmacy. They are waiting to find out if a high-end whiskey costing $400 a bottle has arrived or not.
When the liquor store’s door opens, the expensive whiskey did make it in overnight, and the line moves briskly with happy customers.
Standing not far from this scene is a long-time Kroger employee who spends her days stocking pizzas and other frozen goods into tall glass-doored freezers.
With tired eyes she glances at the absurdity of those buying $400 bottles of whiskey, then turns to a Free Press reporter.
When local media reported Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan was stepping downon Thursday, January 28, many Columbus residents were relieved and hopeful. The Columbus Dispatch quoted Mayor Andy Ginther’s rationale for asking the chief to leave: “Columbus residents have lost faith in him and in the division's ability to change on its own.” Ginther demoted former Chief Quinlan back to deputy chief.
Ohio’s capital city experienced a tumultuous year of social justice protests and the continued exposure of the Columbus Division of Police’s racist and violent activities. Black Lives Matter protests starting with George Floyd’s murder by police in the spring were marred by numerous incidents of excessive police violence and over-charging protesters – resulting in promises from city government that things would change.
“Quinlan represents the status quo, which is evident when you look at the lack of impactful changes he failed to make,” a current Columbus police officer noted, “the City of Columbus and the Division of Police are worse off now than when he took over.”
Late on Inauguration Day, President Biden signed an Executive Order repealing the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy and directing federal departments to carry out the mission. The Department of Homeland Security announced it will suspend deportations for 100 days, starting January 22. This gives the government time to establish a new immigration policy, and for Congress to pass immigration laws that create pathways to citizenship for immigrants who are already home.
Lynn Tramonte, Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance responds:
From every immigration jail, let freedom ring!
This 100-day pause is a sigh of relief for so many people in Ohio and beyond. After four brutal years of cruel and truly incomprehensible deportations, the U.S. Government seems ready to inject some common sense into the enforcement of civil immigration laws.
Sandwiched between the nation’s honoring of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on January 18 and the inauguration of President Biden on January 20, a deportation charter flight is scheduled to leave Florence (Arizona), for Mauritania on Tuesday. Flights to Haiti and Jamaica with others being deported are also scheduled.
These are some of the last acts of Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) . For the Black Mauritanian, Haitian, and Jamaican communities and their families, it is deeply painful for these asylum-seekers who traveled so far to seek freedom and their families.
Before Trump, deportations to Mauritania “were rare”, says Houleye Thiam, president of the Mauritanian Network for Human Rights in US (MNHRUS), which is based in Columbus and Cincinnati. According to US Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, the largest Mauritanian community in the US is here in Central Ohio.
The storming of the Capitol by pro-Trump anti-democracy rioters is reported to have caught the local police off guard. Trump supporters have a long history of violence, more recently culminating with the breaking into statehouses in Michigan and Oregon as well as the Proud Boys march in D.C. that involved multiple stabbings.
A fundraising effort to support terminated Columbus Division of Police officer Adam Coy is currently ongoing among many Columbus police officers, asking 200 officers to give $20 a month to raise $4,000 a month.
The officer-initiated fundraiser is not for any legal fund, which the local Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) would take care of, but for Coy’s mortgage and other expenses, say several black officers who forwarded the above screenshot to the Free Press. There’s no policy within the Division against raising money for fellow officers.
The community is painfully aware of the double-standard Columbus police have towards black citizens, but black officers continue to tell the Free Press this also applies to how they can be treated as well.