Credit: SAM ALLARD / SCENE
If you scan even the most surface-level social media commenting or television newscasts these days, you’re sure to run into all sorts of paranoia about rampant destruction that lies ahead. The city has been in APB mode, alerting residents across all wards that violence will not be tolerated — even as Cleveland’s protesters have undertaken nothing more aggressive than acts of civil disobedience since Nov. 22.

The concern, broadcasted from City Hall and from your brother-in-law’s Facebook page, is that people from out of town will scorch this mufukin city.

So we’re interested in hearing from employers and employees — we’ll leave names out of it if need be — about what sort of “emergency plans” are in place for the near future. CMSD, for instance, has already announced that students may stay home if their families feel that’s the safer option. Without being given specifics, we’ve been told that the Cleveland Public Library has “an emergency plan” in place. Churches across town are set to fling open their doors as soon as Judge John O’Donnell drops the word.

It’s tough to shake the sense that, with all of this circling-the-wagons business, the die was cast long ago and O’Donnell’s inevitable verdict is just a formality at this point. 

The delay from the courthouse is baffling (though we’ve written about bench trial timelines), and one consequence is that the skepticism and fear-mongering has a greater chance to grow into genuine panic and anger at forces as-yet-unseen. (Note to Case PoliSci students: There’s a free thesis for ya.)

Shoot a line to esandy@clevescene.com if your place of work is sweating the The Verdict. 

This article appears in May 13-19, 2015.

Eric Sandy is an award-winning Cleveland-based journalist. For a while, he was the managing editor of Scene. He now contributes jam band features every now and then.

7 replies on “Has Your Company Announced ‘Preparations’ Ahead of the Brelo Verdict?”

  1. As long as members of the community don’t let outsiders scorch our city it won’t be scorched there’s more of us then them!

  2. Every business should have contingency plans-for all kinds of scenarios. Did you also scan social media to see if threats of violence are indeed being made? That would seen to me to be the more important coverage.

  3. As a organizer for some social groups in the Greater Cleveland area I have canceled my events for the safety of my members. If streets are blocked off that is wasting gas for them and all we want to do is have a fun night out on the town. I worry for the safety for everyone because if outsiders come in a fire things up then we have a mess on our hands.

  4. The city officials are inciting a panic, that they are preparing for so-called “outside agitators” when they are sending a military consortium against peaceful protestors and comparing them to being terrorist.

  5. If O’Donnell told the verdict to the city last week but still has not told the defendant or the public, that seems like judicial misconduct to me. Maybe, at this point, the Ohio Supreme Court’s Judicial Disciplinary Committee should be taking an active interest.

    I am a huge Judge O’Donnell fan, but I have lost confidence in this trial and verdict. It may well be that Jackson and his merry band of fear-mongers pressured O’Donell, but he should have resisted in the name of objectivity and public confidence.

  7. In some Downtown businesses people have been told to take their laptops home every night so they can work from home if necessary.

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