Local
Tuesday, June 23, 2020, 5:00 - 7:00 PM
Daily
EVERY NIGHT we will be marching from Ohio's Statehouse to different Columbus communities.
Start gathering around 5:00 pm each night outside the Statehouse.
** We will begin the march around 6:30 pm and return to the Statehouse afterward. **
Join us to bring hope to Columbus' communities and keep up the push for change! #BlackLivesMatter #GeorgeFloyd #BreonnaTaylor #SayTheirNames
After a day including an LGBTQ-Black Lives Matter march at noon and other anti-police brutality gatherings at the Statehouse this evening, the Columbus Police and SWAT seemed to anticipate trouble with an unprecedented and unnecessry show of force around 5pm, witnesses report. Bike cops rammed into protestors without provocation. On Facebook videos, police are seen running on the sidewalk and one wrestling with and punching a young black man. It is unclear what prompted this proactive violence on behalf of the police.
But a look at a June 19 Dispatch article might give a clue. The police union president Keith Ferrell complained that he was stymied by not being able to use tear gas -- it had beeen banned by Mayor Ginther -- to disperse a crowd. Perhaps starting a new riot after weeks of peaceful protests is what Ferrell needs to make his point.
A timeline from our Free Press photographer match with photos below:
5 pm: State police guarding the Ohio Statehouse during protests Sunday evening. Note red paint on stone facade, remnants of "bloody" handprints applied by protesters on Friday.
Back in the mid-sixties, in the heady days of Lyndon Johnson’s ‘Great Society Program,’ I was working in my first job out of college as an ‘intergroup relations professional’ at the Detroit Commission on Community Relations. I spent my days helping to enforce newly enacted ‘open housing’ and ‘equal opportunity’ ordinances designed to begin reversing centuries of injustice against African Americans in the Motor City.
With two sociology degrees focused on race relations on my vita, I was assigned to design and facilitate a program of ‘racial sensitivity training’ for Detroit’s entire -notoriously racist - police force. The program was funded under the then newly created Federal Office of Equal Opportunity.
Sunday, June 21, 12pm
Ohio Statehouse, 1 Capitol Square
“We need in every bay and community a group of angelic troublemakers.”
Bayard Rustin
Join Kingfinity and the Columbus, Ohio LGBTQ+ Community as We March Against Racism and Police Brutality. Stand With Us As We March For Black Lives!
Did you miss the June Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon?
If so, here's a run-down of what happened and how you can be involved next time!
COLUMBUS, OH: June 17, 2020 - Today a lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio, demanding the immediate suspension of a unique Columbus City Charter provision which places a one year timeline on ballot initiative petition gathering. The City’s June 18 deadline on signature gathering for the petitioners is unconstitutional during the Covid-19 pandemic, because it effectively kills ballot access, according to the lawsuit.
“The City cannot have its cake and eat it too,” says volunteer petitioner Kathy McGlone. “One day they say democracy and a safe response to the pandemic can co-exist. Yet they refuse to take action to safeguard the petition process, effectively killing our promising ballot initiative drive.”
Mayor Ginther has taken action on a few fronts: Ginther signed an executive order last week that would require all police killings and uses of lethal force to be investigated by Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations working under the Ohio Attorney General, ordering tear gas and mace to no longer be used against peaceful protestors, announcing that Columbus will join the ‘8 can’t wait’ campaign, and establishing a panel to advise Chief Thomas Quinlan.
But what about the CDP officers who have killed Columbus residents yet still work for CDP and facing no indictments? It is often said there are only a few “bad apples” tarnishing the entire force.
Although Ginther didn’t specify whether these independent investigations on CDP would include reopening ones from the past, perhaps it would be beneficial to set a new precedent by seeking out justice for the unheard victims of CDP.
Columbus, Ohio Defend Black Lives Event
Friday, June 19, 2020, 11:30 AM
Juneteenth, celebrated on June nineteenth, is a day that honors Black freedom and Black resistance. This Juneteenth join MAG & the nationwide 6.19 Day of Action by attending this local event! Come join us for a few hours of celebration to commemorate Juneteenth at the MPACC BoxPark, 925 Mt. Vernon Ave., Columbus, Ohio 43203. More information and sign up here.
Epstein came to my attention when I was an investigative journalist for one of Columbus, Ohio's alternative newsweeklies, Columbus Alive. Not many people know that the infamous Jeffrey Epstein spent a lot of time in Columbus in the 1990s and owned the second most valuable house in Franklin County (where Columbus resides), in the plush Stepford suburb known as New Albany. I investigated central Ohio billionaire Les Wexner's and Jeff Epstein’s ties to the intelligence community more than 20 years ago. Much of this is captured in two books – The Fitrakis Files: Spooks, Nukes, and Nazis and The Fitrakis Files: Cops, Coverups, and Corruption (CICJ Books, freepress.org).