Protest Reports

On Saturday May 4, the night of the Columbus Blue Jackets game and Gallery Hop in the Short North, the Coalition to Free Masonique Saunders blocked off the intersection at Buttles Avenue and North High Street for 90 minutes. Their goal was to stop the flow of capital to raise awareness about Columbus Police’s murder of Julius Tate Jr. and the false felony murder and aggravated robbery charges on Masonique Saunders. The Coalition wants people to pack the court at 9am on Thursday, May 9 to prevent Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien from trying Saunders, the falsely charged 17-year-old, as an adult.

Kaiya Gordon, Lainie Rini, and Margie Sarsfield, three out of the four people arrested, drove into the intersection and stopped their car. The police pepper-sprayed the activists near the car and used their bikes to push others onto the sidewalks. Rini and Sarsfield were attached to the car to prevent the cops from towing the vehicle with them in it.

While being brutally pulled, pepper sprayed, and denied medical care, Rini was shouting, “Let go. You’re hurting me. My eyes are burning.”

Rev. Gary Witte calls out the ones responsible for the tax abatements that take money from the Columbus city schools. On April 24, approximately 400 Columbus school teachers marched to the headquarters of one of the local corporations that has received a "15-year, 100 percent property-tax abatement last year for a new $225 million office complex in downtown Columbus to be completed by 2024," according to ThisWeek newspaper. Holding a banner that stated "Cover My Students" they descended upon the firm CoverMyMeds to protest how that corporation will "avoid more than $50 million in property taxes thanks to the abatement it received from the city," reported WOSU Radio. The teachers' union says the abatements hurt the public educational system in Columbus because it relies on property taxes for funding. 

Over 50 people marched from Bicentennial Park to the Franklin County Juvenile Detention Center today to demand the release of Masonique Saunders, 17, who was incarcerated last December. Saunders is being charged with felony murder after Columbus police shot and killed her boyfriend, Julius Tate, in an undercover operation. Saunders was not involved in the murder.

Singing and chanting, the marchers carried drums, instruments, and noisemakers so that they can be heard from inside the jail.

“Masonique did not murder Julius, the police did. They need to be held accountable, she needs to be with her family and community in her home and school,” said Lainie Rini, a member of the Coalition to Free Masonique Saunders.

Saunders has been in the Franklin County Juvenile Detention Center since last December. She has not been granted any bail. The Coalition has held actions and demonstrations for the past several months to demand the release of Saunders, including a sit-in in city prosecutor Ron O’Brien’s office last Monday.

Family and friends gathered to show their love and support for Donna Dalton who was murdered by former Columbus Police vice officer Andrew Mitchell at the site of a vigil, Saturday, March 23. Justice will only be served until Andrew Mitchell and those high ranking officers within the Columbus Police Department who have known for years about the ongoing corruption within this division are all placed in a cell. #Justice4Donna.

Fifty farm workers and their children traveled from Immokalee Florida to march in Columbus last Friday, in coordination with International Women's Day, with 300 university students and locals.

Marchers demanded human rights, and better working conditions at a farm that produces tomatoes for Wendy’s. The stop in Columbus is part of a several year divestment campaign called Boot the Braids against Wendy’s, a reference to the company’s logo of a red headed white female in braids and with freckles on her cheeks. 

Anti-fracking, environmental activists protested Mike Pence's visit to Easton in Columbus to speak at the Ohio Oil and Gas Association convention. 

On March 7 at 3:15 PM, 25 members of the Ohio State University community including undergraduate and graduate students, staff , and alumni entered Bricker Hall and began a sit-in outside of President Drake’s office to demand OSU end its business relationship with the fast food giant Wendy’s. The sit-in is the latest escalation of the years-long, student-led “Boot the Braids” campaign to remove Wendy’s from campus during which students have fasted, and marched, in protest of the fact that Wendy’s refuses to protect farmworker human rights by joining the CIW’s Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program.

On International Women’s Day 2019 (March 8), hundreds of farmworkers, students, people of faith, community leaders and allies from across the country will march from Goodale Park to Ohio State University President Drake’s office as part of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) nationwide “4 for Fair Food” human rights tour. The CIW will be joining  the campus-based “Boot the Braids” campaigns to end the schools’ business relationships with the national fast food chain, Wendy’s, until it joins the CIW’s Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program.

In breaking news ahead of the tour, it was announced that Wendy’s will not be invited back to the University of Michigan, making UM the first university to “boot” Wendy’s from campus.  The decision to not invite Wendy’s back was declared through formal resolutions from the Michigan Union Board of Representatives, the UM student government, and the local Ann Arbor City Council. 

Over 100 people gathered on a cold Monday morning February 18th -- President's Day -- in downtown Columbus to protest what they called Trump's fake emergency on the border to justify his spending more money to build a wall. They marched to U.S. Senator Rob Portman's office to appeal to him to stop the fake emergency to stop the wall. 

Wright State University (WSU) teachers returned Monday morning at 9am to the picket line for the second week one day after Ohio’s State Employment Relations Board (SERB) rejected the university’s claim that the strike is unlawful. In a rare Sunday meeting, SERB found “the strike is authorized.” The next day by 9:30am 75 strikers had already assembled at the university’s main entrance.

The American Association of University Professors-Wright State University (AAUP-WSU) Contract Administration Officer Professor Noeleen McIlvenna, who has acted as the de facto communications director for the strike campaign said last week people “were feeling a little nervous” to be seen supporting the strike. Support grew throughout last week as people saw others were participating. “Once the SERB declared it bogus the last fear is gone. Now it feels like the world is supporting us,” McIlvenna said.