In an early Sunday morning Facebook Live session, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson announced that the downtown Cleveland curfew set to begin tonight at 8 p.m. would instead begin at noon and last until 8 a.m. Monday morning.
Cleveland police currently have the Detroit-Superior and Lorain-Carnegie bridges blocked and are checking IDs to allow people through. Lift bridges on other connectors to downtown are raised.
Saturday’s George Floyd protest (see our gallery of photos here) gathered thousands in downtown Cleveland in an assembly that began peaceful and then turned chaotic after Cleveland police launched tear gas and rubber bullets at crowds around the Justice Center.
As law enforcement attempted to dispel the crowds, and as the city restricted traffic into downtown, a small group of protestors smashed windows on Euclid Ave. from Public Square to Playhouse Square. Geiger’s was looted, and there were reports of liquor being carried away from bars dotting the street.
Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams, who joined Jackson on the video, claimed most of the offenders who damaged property were not from the area. That sentiment echoes those from officials in other cities, including Minneapolis, though with few arrests in Cleveland, Williams’ claim is merely an assumption at this point.
“There was a large group of folks who were intent on not being peaceful and that caused all of our problems,” Chief Williams said. “We’re going to have folks deployed all over downtown and all over the City to make sure things like today don’t happen again. We know that a lot of things that happened today were [done by] people who do not live in the City of Cleveland or in this area. There’s tons of video footage of a lot of things that happened and we have investigators as we speak who are going through that footage to identify folks so we can bring them to justice…We’re going to do everything possible to keep this City safe.”
Gov. Mike DeWine has also dispatched the Ohio National Guard to Cleveland to assist local authorities.
“As you know, the demonstration today started off peacefully,” said Mayor Frank G. Jackson. “It then escalated into activities that were not only unlawful and disruptive but really didn’t represent the spirit of what people were intending to do.”
Jackson said the city will use all available video evidence to bring those that caused damage to justice. Hopefully the city will also avail itself of readily accessible video evidence of Cleveland police using force against peaceful protestors.
Volunteers and city workers will use the curfew time to clean up Euclid Ave. and board up broken windows.
While it’s unsettling to see downtown vandalized, and while many may feel that those who threw bricks through windows don’t represent the brand of protest they’d prefer to see, and while local businesses will now face the work of installing new windows and reopening, let us not forget some perspective here.
This was not just about George Floyd.
And it will not take generations to overcome some property damage.
As Pour Cleveland, whose windows were busted yesterday, said in an Instagram comment: “It’s just stuff guys. Not our place to judge to how people respond when their voices continue to fall on deaf ears and justice is not served.”
This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2020.
How pathetic. Every Mayor and Governor echoing the same talking point, “they aren’t from here”. The sad dupes from Pour Cleveland programmed not to judge those who just trashed their place. Sad pathetic dupes.
Fix your headline.
It should read “Weekend Riot”.
Hey NRWM, Vince doesn’t have the balls to write an accurate headline.
Way to go, asshole rioters. You had the emotional support of almost everybody until you got violent. Now you have the disgust of almost everybody. You people are garbage.
The end result of yesterday’s protest in Cleveland is that the protesters made Cleveland’s black mayor and black chief of police look bad as well as harming Cleveland, and for what?
No one in Cleveland or even in Ohio had anything to do with what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
No one benefited from the chaos, destruction, and discontent yesterday except the Media.
It defies common sense for Democrats to attack and try to destroy a Democratic city, but this is what happened yesterday.
This is from someone who is not a Republican or a Democrat.
Vince and Sam are the biggest 2 faced journalists (?) in the city. They egg on protestors and then wonder why it happens? You literally cannot make this stuff up. They are here for entertainment purposes only.
Meanwhile, multiple other news outlets with real reporters pulled the arrest records and found that they all are indeed from this area. The 80 percent out of state claims in Minnesota have been equally debunked.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully support the protesters. And I understand the anger of the rioters. I just prefer facts in my news reports rather than lazy parroting of lying city officials.
Bob, Bob, Bob. When will you ever get it? The truth means nothing anymore. Not to the Left, not to the Right, not to the Media, not to our glorious politicians. They all have their own truth.
“Live YOUR truth” is the latest psychobabble crap fad, Bob. Embrace the bullshit.
FGF: Not only would your vapid, tasteless, lame, insipid suburb not thrive without the city, it would cease to exist, or never exist in the first place. I spent my childhood and teen years in an ethnic suburb, and I couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of Dodge.
Keep living in your McMansion and being scared to work, play, or live in Cleveland. Keep on being afraid to live in a diverse and vibrant urban neighborhood. Keep chillin’ on yourunimaginative, colorless deck and listening to your shitty country music and pretending you’re a southern hillbilly or a Tex-ass cowboy.
You don’t have the balls to even come into town, let alone doing anything to help fix Cleveland make it work. You’re a gutless pussy.
So keep on doing that hunker in your bunker and being afraid of anyone who isn’t whitebread, white-power, white trash like you.
You only come here for a few things… dragging your fat ass and your racist GOP family to Tribe games, shitty country concerts downtown, or pissing and puking in the Muni lot.
Stay home in Plasticville, loser. I hate you and I’m damn glad I ain’t you.
Proud West Sider, you are programmed well. You spit out all of the talking points and rage like a lil child that didn’t get dessert.
Your next original thought will be your first.
That’s the best you can do, sonny? “Lil” child?…seriously?
So you’re a wanna-be rapper now? Lame and laughable.
Friends, in addition to the destruction and demoralization caused by these coordinated attacks, the objective here is to increase public support for stricter laws regarding protests, lockdowns, and resisting the government in general. Just in time for the quarantines, tracking,, vaccine, or implant chip you’ll be wanting to protest about.
So the right-wing punks in this city are now blaming SCENE for the rioting and are threatening to “focus our collective anger ” on them?
Rant and bluster about journalists all you like, but if you are planning anything more than that, you will pay dearly for your “anger.”
There are some people in this town who would be more than happy to have an excuse to spray the cockroaches with big mouths and toeradicate them if they get out of control.
Proud Westsider, I lived on the Southwest side of Cleveland for 20 of my adult years….I used the city the same way it used me and I took my hard earned money and moved right the fuck out as soon as I found the beautiful place I’ve always wanted.
It’s amazing here, the best part, the gunfire….I hear much more out here than I did in Cleveland, the difference I know it’s the good guys.
I pray these clowns venture out of the City Center, give my neighbors something to practice on other than coke cans and old TV sets.
Proud Westsider, I lived on the Southwest side of Cleveland for 20 of my adult years….I used the city the same way it used me, and I took my hard earned money and moved right the fuck out as soon as I found the beautiful place I’ve always wanted.
It’s amazing here, the best part, the gunfire….I hear much more out here than I did in Cleveland, the difference, I know it’s the good guys.
I pray these clowns venture out of the City Center, give my neighbors something to practice on other than coke cans and old TV sets.
Here we are locked down even harder than before begging the military to come restore order just as planned. Identical scenario in cities around the US.
The CPD know how to police a protest. Here they were ordered to stand down early so the damage could be done and then they could lock the city down as a result.
Someone said they saw Sam Allard and Vince Grzegorek smashing windows. It makes sense since they’re both in antifa and Sam disappeared from the protest at 3pm when the destruction began.
So nice you had to say to say it twice, right, asshole?
You will get the civil war you are asking for and begging for.
Version 2.0 will not be a game and you will not escape.
Your goddamned deck will burn and so will you. Bring it on.
Now you know why businesses in the ghetto have ‘plywood windows’.
“Someone” saw them, Guys? You’ll have to lie better than that.
They’re in Antifa? Prove it, or shut the fuck up.
Ever hear of a guy named Eisenhower? he was an Antifa, too. He won.
Memo to the Last Man standing……………
u can take ur “emotional support” print it on a sheet of paper and wipe ur azz with it………………..
When u racist bastards killed Dr. King ????? u dug ur own Graves!!!!!!!!!!!