The head of the Cleveland police union called on Ohio Gov. John Kasich to ban the open carry of firearms in areas around the upcoming Republican National Convention, citing Sunday’s fatal shooting of police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and placed blame for the shooting on President Obama.
Saying a lack of leadership contributed to the Baton Rouge shooting, Cleveland Police Patrolman’s Association President Stephen Loomis said President Obama has “blood on his hands,” in an interview on Fox News.
“The president of the United States validated the false narrative and the nonsense that Black Lives Matter and the media are pressing out out there to the public, validated it with this divisive statements and now we see an escalation,” Mr. Loomis said, noting statements the president made following recent shootings of civilians by police. “This has got to end. We need some leadership in this country to come and put an end to this.”
Mr. Loomis told Fox that attorneys for the union were drafting a letter to Mr. Kasich asking him to take emergency action to temporarily suspend state laws that allow the open carry of firearms in Cuyahoga County for the week of the convention, which is set to open Monday.
“Anybody who is going to have an open carry weapon is going to be treated and looked at in a hostile type environment,” Mr. Loomis said. “In this environment where police officers are being ambushed and murdered, anyone who has an open carry gun, we are going to look at and we are going to look at very hard.”
A spokesperson for the Ohio governor could not be immediately reached to comment Sunday.
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Mr. Loomis questioned why the state’s open carry laws could be suspended inside the Quicken Loans Arena, where the convention is taking place, but not in the immediate areas outside the arena where protests are planned.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson previously told cleveland.com that the city would not be asking the governor suspend the state’s open-carry law.
“If we believed there was a cooperative venture that could result in a positive outcome on a temporary basis it would have happened by now,” Mr. Jackson said last week.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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