COLUMBUS, Ohio — Videos of the protests from over the weekend are continuing to surface on social media showing confrontations between Columbus police officers and protesters.
Tynan Krakoff, the lead organizer for Showing Up For Racial Justice Columbus, said he was there to protest in front of Mayor Andrew Ginther’s home and was also downtown. He said he noticed the atmosphere quickly change.
“This seemed like the first time in quite a while in a couple of weeks that the police are back to using pepper spray,” Krakoff said.
He described what he saw over the weekend as chaos.
“People were running in every direction, people had been hit and were on the ground like shouting for a medic or street medics with saline flushing,” Krakoff said,
He said he did not see protesters being violent and has questions as to why pepper spray was used or why certain actions were taken by police.
“People were certainly being disruptive but nothing that would warrant pepper spray,” Krakoff said.
Columbus Police Sgt. James Fuqua said that they were monitoring the protesters and things took a turn, which is why they followed the steps they did.
“We do not mind peaceful protesting we want everyone to exercise their first amendments rights to peacefully protest we’re totally OK with that, however because of incidents that happened over the past six to seven days we were very concerned,” Sgt. Fuqua said.
He said as many families were downtown celebrating Father’s Day and they needed to make sure everyone was safe.
“During the early afternoon hours, it became very clear to us that it was getting to a point the demonstrators were going from being a peaceful protest to illegal activity and what I mean by that is that they started to take the street they were blocking vehicular traffic, it was almost impassable for cars to go down the road,” Sgt. Fuqua said.
He said with that, it was a danger for the people protesting and others.
Sgt. Fuqua said they had a commander from the department go out and have a conversation with the protesters.
“We follow the rule and guidelines set forth by Mayor Ginther and Chief Quinlan to continue to follow these new best practices in regards to crowds so the commander went up to the crowd and there were several people willing to speak to him,” Sgt. Fuqua said.
He said they have received many calls from the concerned community member saying that they could not pass through High Street and Broad Street.
“We’ve had people set fires over the past couple of nights to where emergency personnel had trouble even getting there to put these fires out,” Sgt. Fuqua said.
After the commander spoke with the protesters, Sgt. Fuqua said some people followed the order to go on the sidewalk and some stayed in the street.
“They started grabbing the bikes of the patrol officers who were trying to help them and they became aggressive,” Sgt. Fuqua said.
Sgt. Fuqua said what really sparked the escalation point was when a scooter was picked up and thrown at officers.
“The officers thankfully saw the object coming they were able to avoid it and they immediately went after that particular demonstrating because not only could the officers have been hurt, but the other demonstrators that were just in front of the police he actually threw the scooter over top of them so many people could be hurt which falls under the guidelines set forth for us,” Sgt. Fuqua said.
As for the pepper spray, one of the rules in the rules of engagement says “if a chemical irritant is used, it should be directed at the persons participating in the violent or aggressive conduct, not at the group in general.”
“If that’s their protocol then that’s an indictment of their system of policing if that is the proper protocol,” Krakoff said.
“There is a clear and distinct difference between a peaceful protest and someone illegally demonstrating their right to protest,” Sgt. Fuqua said.
Mayor Andrew Ginther responded on Twitter on Monday saying, “Peaceful protests are encouraged. We know there were clashes between police and protesters last night. Inappropriate use of force by police will not be tolerated, nor will assaults on officers. We are reviewing body-worn camera footage and 911 calls.”