COLUMBUS, Ohio — Protesters have surrounded vehicles in downtown Columbus for several nights in a row, according to Keith Ferrell, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge #9.
He says officers need more guidance on how to respond. But he could not confirm that a post circulating on social media was written by one of his officers.
The post is a warning to the public:
PUBLIC SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENT: If in fact you do not have to be downtown or a surrounding area, for your own safety I encourage you to stay away. The last two nights protestors have surrounded cruisers blocking them in, blocked in civilian vehicles because they thought the drivers were police officers, as well as blocked in and jumped on COTA busses. Officers who were dispatched and responded to the calls for service are being ordered to stand down. Please do not put yourself and your loved ones in harm’s way. If you find yourself as one of the drivers being blocked in, we cannot do anything to that person because the City is defining them as a peaceful protester. So even if we do respond, you’re on your own. The new executive orders we received yesterday have completely tied our hands of enforcing the law now. Thank the City of Columbus politically motivated administration for these stand down orders.
The Columbus Division of Police then posted a response on Facebook:
in response to false claims about incidents downtown:
CPD officers have not been asked to “stand down” to protesters. No direction that Mayor Ginther has given to Chief Quinlan over the last three days would have prevented police officers from intervening in a situation where a car or a person within it were being attacked. If people or property are threatened, there are many tactics at the disposal of police to address the situation. However, the incident described does not sound like one in which tear gas would have been considered appropriate before this week’s direction.
Ferrell said the public should not be worried.
“We’re not going to let someone get assaulted,” he said. “I believe our officers are better than that, always have been.”
Still, he says more guidance is needed. This comes after this week’s announcement from Mayor Andrew Ginther. The mayor announced a ban on tear gas for protesters and limits to the use of pepper spray.
“We’re not going to let someone get physically assaulted and pulled out of a vehicle,” Ferrell said. “I just don’t see that any officer’s ever going to do that. What I don’t know is if a large crowd surrounds your vehicle and obstructs your movement or even potentially climbs on your vehicle but doesn’t physically hurt you, I’m not so sure, I think those are the answers we’re looking for in those cases, how do we handle that.”
10TV did reach out to the mayor’s office late in the day for more input that might be provided to CPD on how best to respond to these situations but has yet to receive a response.
“There’s plenty of things we can do,” Ferrell said. “It’s just a question of – is that what they want us to do. They’re writing the policy, and they’re making the decisions now, so don’t just tell us what we can’t do, go a step farther and tell us what we can do to solve these problems, and that’s what we’re looking for right now.”
The Central Ohio Transit Authority did confirm an incident involving one of its buses Tuesday night.
We had a transit vehicle last night that did not receive the reroute around the demonstration area. No attempt was made by COTA dispatch to contact the Columbus Police Department (CPD) for assistance, as they were already in the area due to the demonstration. CPD did contact COTA dispatch because the transit vehicle did not follow the reroute. The demonstrators did surround the transit vehicle; however, they quickly cleared with no issues or damage to the vehicle.