CLEVELAND, Ohio- Ohio GOVE Mike DeWine has granted the request by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson to deploy 300 members of the armed National Guard to patrol the city ahead of the Sept 29 First Presidential Debate on Tuesday, Black Lives Matter activists planning at least two protests.
A Democrat, Jackson is the four-term Black mayor of the city, and the city's third Black mayor.
The debate between Republican President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, is sponsored by Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic.
It will be held at the Samson Pavilion on the clinic's main campus and will air uninterrupted from 9 pm to 10:30 pm on every major network and cable news channel
Both Black Lives Matter protests are from 5pm-8pm and near the location of the debate, at University Circle, and the other at 105th Street and Chester Ave.
Cleveland has some 1,613 patrol officers, and roughly 60 percent of them are White, even though the city is roughly 58 percent Black.
The armed National Guard comes to Cleveland on the heels of the May 25 riots during a protest in downtown Cleveland over the killing by Minneapolis police of George Floyd and nationwide unrest relative to excessive force killings by police of a host of unarmed Black people, and anger by activists over the president's handling of the protests, which they say is fueled by his pro- cop stance.
Federal authorities are already in Cleveland as part of Trump's Operation Legend initiative, which he says is operating in selected major cities across the country in an effort to deter crime, community activists arguing that its is merely harassment of protesters, and an orchestrated attempt to silence free speech.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
