Some black leaders and residents in the Great Cincinnati expressed consternation after neo -Nazis They were allowed to meet on a highway bridge without arrest.
Some have requested a quick investigation of the Response of Evendale Police and the deputies of the Hamilton County Sheriff after the demonstration on Friday afternoon in the elevated step of Interestal 75 between the town of Evendale and Lincoln Heights, the latter a historically black community.
The most important question for the critics of the answer is why none of the neo -Nazis protesters was arrested after the group was faced by members of the community, with firearms on display on both sides.
The Reverend Julian Armand Cook of the Missionary Baptist Church of Lincoln Heights said in an interview that the demonstration of hate, which included flags adorned with swastika, was shocking.
“To see it appear at the entrance door to this historic community, the first, the oldest and most autonomous black city north of the Mason-Dixon line, it is very clear what message is sending,” he said. “So I was, I was angry. I was injured. It surprised me.”
Evendale Police said in a statement on Tuesday that the officers were obliged to protect the rights of the first amendment from protesters and that, despite the fact that the demonstration was carried out without a permission, it was legal. The Police Department said that ticket protesters for smaller issues, such as transporting people in the rear of a cash truck, who approached when they left, without seats with belt, was overlooked on behalf of preventing violence.
The department did not approach the nature of the manifestation, which some black residents described as existentially threatening.
Lincoln Heights resident Eric Ruffin said at the Aldea meeting on Tuesday night that he was called racial epithet by one of the protesters.
“Do you want a community where you don’t feel sure?” asked.
The Police Department said the officers were put in a incendiary situation that was resolved without injuries or losses of lives.
“One of the groups was strongly armed with multiple firearms and tensions between the opposite groups was increasing,” he said. “As such, the primary priority was to continue the efforts to isolate groups, limit new participants and further display the situation.”
To achieve that goal, the department said the officers allowed a U-Haul Box truck to safely overcome the counter-demons, and an officer gave a trip to a neo-Nazi protester who told him that it was not safe to return to a vehicle because counterproductive the protesters were along the way.
In a separate statement, the Hamilton County Sheriff, Charmaine McGuffey, said to decline the situation on the bridge so that no one was injured was a priority for the agents answered.
“Lincoln Heights residents are understandably annoying,” he said. “We continue working with the community and emphasize that there is no place for hate in Hamilton County.”
The People of Evendale has held two City Council meetings in the matter in two days, and the The neo -Nazi demonstration was a topic of discussion for the Hamilton County County Commissioner Board on Tuesday.
“We had questions about why there were no arrests when there were clear violations of the law,” Cook said.
Ohio’s state representative, Cecil Thomas, D-Cincinnati, said he would support the legislation to ensure that the authorities have tools they can use to arrest said protesters in the future.
“I can guarantee that we will obtain some measures so that if this happens again, the police will have the authority to take measures,” he told a community meeting on Monday, according to NBC WLWT affiliate from Cincinnati.
The County Commissioner Alicia Reece, speaking in the commission, supported the calls for investigation into the response of the application of the law, saying that the protesters became too comfortable.
The residents, he argued, defended themselves for themselves.
“They had to enter their own home, get their own weapons, go out and risk being owners of life,” Reece said at the meeting, captured in the video he published on Facebook. “And they felt that the only thing that happened was a defense in their Nazis mind.”
Cook praised a community with a remarkable history of self -government for taking care of hate.
“What should be maintained at the forefront of this story is the way in which this community intervened to decline this situation themselves, and they did so in a way that preserved their dignity and integrity,” he said.
