(suspenseful techno music) - Akron voters will decide in November, whether to create a civilian police review board.

Former president Donald Trump is getting involved in Ohio politics as he rallies for Republican JD Vance in his US Senate race.

And Cedar Point says the ride is over for the Top Thrill Dragster.

Ideas is next.

(fast suspenseful music) Hello and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

The push for more accountability and transparency of Akron police will be decided by voters.

City Council has put a charter amendment on the November ballot that would create a civilian police review board.

In Canton, the family of a man shot dead by police on New Year's Day say they're still seeking justice after a grand jury declined to indict the officer who shot him.

Two months to go before the pivotal midterm elections and former President Donald Trump is jumping into Ohio politics.

He'll boost Republican JD Vance's senate campaign with a Youngstown rally and he endorsed Mike DeWine in his re-election bid for governor.

And once the fastest, tallest roller coaster in the world, the Top Thrill Dragster is now retired.

We'll talk about those stories and the rest of the week's news on the Reporter's Roundtable.

Joining me this week from Ideastream Public Media, Senior Reporter Kabir Bhatia and Akron Canton Reporter Anna Huntsman.

And in Columbus, Statehouse News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

Akron City Council, in a special meeting yesterday, voted to put a charter amendment on the November ballot that would create a civilian police review board.

The nine-member board would give input on policing matters, including training and misconduct investigations.

The push for reform follows the police shooting death in June of Jayland Walker, a black man who was unarmed at the time he was shot.

Anna, the council meeting was a formality, meaning it had to put the measure on the ballot at some point, but they had to do it as a special election because if they didn't do it- - [Anna] A special meeting.

- A special meeting.

- Correct.

- If they didn't do it by that time, what would've happened?

- They would've had to force a special election because we're gonna get in the weeds here for just a sec.

But basically the deadline would be today to make it onto this coming November ballot.

Council doesn't meet in August and their next meeting would've been Monday.

So if they would've just taken it up at that meeting, it would've missed that deadline, which would've forced a special election for that specific issue, which, you know, many people I talked to, I talked to someone at the board of elections who said, "It's really hard to get people to come out and vote when you just went in November."

So they met the deadline, it all worked out.

- And the expense.

- Absolutely, yes, it would've been extra expenses for the city and, of course, taxpayers.

But yeah, like you mentioned, this was a formality.

They were required to put it on the ballot because the petition got a couple hundred extra signatures than it actually needed.

So it met the threshold, but that didn't stop council members from speaking up and voicing some concerns that they had about the ballot measure.

So we had a couple councilmen say that they didn't agree with all of the language in the document.

They didn't agree with all of the powers that this review board would have.

We even had Council Vice President Jeff Fusco kind of calling on voters to really educate themselves and he was saying, you know, really look at what's in this, be informed before this November election.

- Did they end up voting for it anywhere or were there some no votes?

- There was one no vote.

It passed 12 to 1.

Councilman Phil Lombardo did vote no and he didn't speak up and say any concerns that he had necessarily in the meeting.

He just had a, he kind of questioned.

He said, "Well, the APD, the Aron police reviews it internally.

Sometimes it goes to the feds, sometimes it goes to the BCI.

Do we need more investigations essentially?"

To which, at large, Councilwoman Linda Omobien said, "Clearly what we have now isn't working."

- And BCI, I'm not gonna let you sneak that one by.

- Sorry, yes.

Yes, there we go.

- Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

So the interesting part is, so some of them may not have liked the language.

They had a vote for it anyway 'cause this was a formality.

But what it sounds like with the, with Fusco is that we're seeing the launch of the campaign.

There may be some people in the next two months who are going to campaign against this.

- That is exactly what I was thinking when I heard that.

Yes, absolutely, community members who put together this petition will be going out and calling on people to vote for this.

But it sounds like there's gonna be some from the other side, as well, and something that is kind of on the other side is that the mayor, Mayor Dan Horrigan has his own proposal for a review board and he is proposing it as an ordinance, which means it wouldn't be in the city charter.

This is, the one that was voted on yesterday, would be a charter amendment.

So something else that Fusco said yesterday is that it's really hard to change the city charter once you have it in there and he's kind of calling for maybe some more time on this.

And the mayor's ordinance would push for a charter amendment next year.

So council's actually gonna take that up on Monday.

So basically all my questions here are what happens if the mayor's proposal goes forward Monday and then later on the charter amendment also gets passed, then it's gonna have to, there's gonna be a lot that goes on, essentially.

(tense orchestral music) - A Cuyahoga County Metropolitan Housing Authority police officer fatally shot a man on Labor Day morning.

Body cam footage shows the officer fired his weapon after being attacked and punched by a man on West 174th Street.

Body cam video was released Wednesday, showing the officer fired his weapon after being attacked and punched by a man on West 174th Street.

Footage shows the officer first attempted to use his taser to subdue 32-year-old Malik Roquemore of Cleveland.

Roquemore died after being transported to Fairview Hospital.

He was shot twice.

Compared it to, second time this year a housing officer had been involved in a shooting.

We see on the first one, we wanted to see video of what happened with that and in fact Ideastream Public Media filed suit in order to get that video.

In this case, video is released within days.

- The video is there.

The video ends actually just as the officer is saying, "I think I hit him once."

And not in a gleeful tone, it seems.

He's informing the paramedics of what's happened.

So yeah, the video came out immediately.

It's unfortunate there's been two of these now.

The first one was within a, one of the units.

There was like a struggle and apparently the, one of the people who live there got the officer's weapon.

So and in this case, he, I believe that Roquemore also was able to bat away the taser or grab it or something before the officer went for his revolver.

So this is the second time, as you said, this year that this has happened at County.

- The quick release of the video, when you look at that, you don't see a situation where a police officer was unprovoked or there was some other issue.

I mean, he was attacked.

- This went on for a while before he, yeah, finally shot.

- Complicating the investigation, there claims that the man who was shot may have suffered from mental health issues.

- Yeah, in both cases, the one that was previous to this, I believe that was in July, and then this one.

In both cases, I think in the video, that you can even hear residents, some of the people saying, you know, something that he's got mental health issues.

That sort of thing.

So that kind of raises questions about, well, what may have caused these mental health issues to get to the point where each of these people was coming at an officer, trying to get their weapon?

I'm sure we're going to be finding out the answers to that soon, I hope we will.

But yeah, in both cases there was mental health issues involved, unfortunately, and there's no way for the officer, it seems, to know that coming on the scene.

In this case, it was a noise complaint that he showed up for.

- Right and then was flagged down by Roquemore.

- Flagged down, yeah, by Roquemore.

(tense orchestral music) - The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority will use transit ambassadors to assist riders and deal with situations that do not call for armed police.

The transit ambassadors will be on HealthLine buses and at RTA rail stations.

Also four social workers will be deployed to work with police and handle mental health and other issues needing de-escalation.

Anna, this is something that, this isn't the RTA situation, but we're hearing that a lot with Akron, with Canton, with Cleveland, that there ought to be a way to deploy people besides police for issues that may not necessarily be police necessary.

- Right, I was actually thinking, it'll be interesting to see if as this program gets deployed and I'm hoping that people will be looking into this and analyzing this to see if it really works because this could be a good model, I think, for other, you know, for police departments.

That's certainly something that they're calling for in Akron.

Citizen groups have had many demands, not just about, you know, could there be other people going out to certain calls when there might, you might need some mental health informed care.

But also there's a lot of demands for what things should police be responding to anyway?

Is there a different unit that could be going?

For example, obviously, with the Jayland Walker situation, traffic violations, there's a lot of calls for, you know, can we have some other type of response to things like that?

- And this is on buses, particularly the HealthLine, which runs right out in front of the Idea Center, Kabir, as well as the rail stations, the Red Line rail stations specifically.

The idea has been supported by rider advocacy groups for some time.

RTA has its own police force and it's a real, it's not like they're security guards.

- [Kabir] No.

- It's a police division.

- It's an actual police division.

And this may be for someone who's listening, say in Solon or Twinsburg or beyond, this may get a little confusing if you haven't done this, the HealthLine buses, there was a, this kind of stems from this conflict four or five years ago where they were concerned about people getting on without paying the fare because there's multiple doors on the buses where you can get on.

So now they've said everyone has to get in through the front door and that's kind of what's driving this and that they're saying that's no good, but RTA is saying, "Look, you know, people are getting on without the fare and we need to find some way to mediate that because we can't have people standing there being confused, shouting at each other, shouting at the driver."

That sort of thing.

So, yeah, the transit police, they, to maybe let them concentrate on other things, not have them involved in something like this and not have it escalate, they're going to be having these ambassadors and the social workers and they can do things like move people along, get things de-escalated when there's a conflict.

With something like this or anything, really.

- And each of them is trained in crisis intervention, which is really key.

- Right, lot of things, crisis intervention, first aid, actually, self-defense.

I believe, I don't know if they'll be carrying Narcan, but they'll know how to use it if they've got their hands on it.

So there's a lot of things they'll be able to do that wouldn't require force that will, as I said, be able to de-escalate things, hopefully, on these buses.

- One of the things that brings some escalation on the HealthLine, particularly, it's a fact you can only get on in the front because that's where the fare box next to the driver is.

They had had some issues about fare collection.

The rider advocates say, "There's another door.

We should be able to get on and off easily on these."

They're real long buses.

They're articulated buses, so there's like two connected together.

That's not happening yet.

- [Kabir] No.

- But it might.

- It might and if we've got these ambassadors in place, then they can get people moving, maybe keep an eye on the fares because before, you know, kinda the option was the transit police will have to search people or confront them and say, "Did you pay?"

And that doesn't lead to good results for anybody, especially if it's the morning.

People are rushed, everyone's half awake, so.

Believe me, in Chicagoland, when I used to see this sort of thing, it never ended well.

Here, I think that maybe this conflict will resolve itself with these ambassadors in place.

Maybe we can get that door opened back up and maybe get the ambassadors out to some of the trains in other lines.

- Yeah, we note that it's the HealthLine and the Red Line train stations.

There are a number of other routes that RTA runs, obviously.

So there are only 10 ambassadors to start.

This seems in some ways, and RTA has indicated this, it's a bit of a test project.

If it works, maybe we see an expansion of it.

- Yeah, and the, I guess, the stumbling block to that might be what, we kind of alluded to this earlier, ridership is down, money is down, the revenue because of that.

So once those things maybe catch up, they can explore and assuming this program is a success, they can explore expanding it to other lines and other modes of transit that RTA runs.

(tense orchestral music) - In Stark County, a grand jury declined charges against a Canton police officer and a fatal shooting on New Year's Day.

James Williams died after being shot by Officer Robert Huber.

Family members say Williams was ringing in the new year by firing his AR-15 into the air in his yard.

The family says the officer fired without first identifying himself.

But Anna, the grand jury looked at this and said it was reasonable.

- That's apparently what happened.

My colleague, Abigail Bottar, was at the press conference where it was announced that the jury members looked at evidence compiled by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations.

I got it this time.

(Mike laughing) Through their investigation that they've done, there's all kinds of evidence that they looked at and decided not to indict.

Bottar was also, there were protests afterwards.

A group of people outside.

And people are really upset about this, are really disappointed about this.

They're calling for more accountability.

You know, one of the, a cousin of Williams, who was the one who was shot and killed, said, "It feels like there's just no accountability.

It just feels like nothing has come of this."

- So on the one side, you see a citizen in their yard, firing a gun to the air, not being really a threat to anyone.

So you can see that side of it.

On the other, you have a police officer called about shots being fired and he hears someone open up with an AR-15 and responds thinking that he's protecting.

- Right, I was looking through some of the evidence and the documents from the case and it does appear that Williams was firing a lot of shots.

Like this wasn't, you know, one or two after the new year, it was significant amounts of rounds, apparently, according to the investigation.

So, yeah, lots to talk about here, lots on both sides, but it is really interesting that he's returned to work.

He will not be, you know, there's no charges at this point.

The Stark County Prosecutor Kyle Stone says there's really nothing else his office can do at this point.

But the family is, they've filed a civil rights lawsuit, as well, and they're also hoping that the feds will investigate, essentially.

(tense orchestral music) - Former President Donald Trump is getting involved in Ohio politics.

He'll headline a rally in Youngstown September 17th, to support Republican JD Vance in his us Senate bid.

That's in Democrat Tim Ryan's backyard.

Trump also has endorsed Mike DeWine in the governor's race, something he did not do in the May primary.

Karen, let's talk about that.

Is... First of all, Trump is coming, what impact will he have?

And Biden keeps coming, what impact will he have?

What does it mean about Ohio?

- Well, I think the question of whether Ohio is still purple is one that certainly Republicans will say was answered in 2020 and in 2016.

The state went red, it went for Donald Trump.

I mean, in 2020 Donald Trump won Ohio by 475,000 votes.

So they'll argue that the state has been red for at least the last two election cycles.

But before that, the state did vote for President Obama.

So it is important to note that this is more a swing state in some ways than necessarily a purple state because it certainly has swung pretty far in both directions.

But that's, I think, really the question here is are the candidates going to be making a difference here?

And certainly Biden's not a candidate in, on this ballot, but obviously his policies are when you start talking about the US Senate and the congressional races.

And so Tim Ryan has been kinda putting Biden at arm's length.

He's been campaigning more like a Republican candidate in a way.

So this rally here in his backyard is really kind of interesting.

What I'll also be interested to see with the former president here for this rally next week is who will be joining him because his statement that, where he announced the rally, said the entire Ohio Trump ticket will be there.

As you just mentioned, Governor Mike DeWine and Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted were endorsed this week.

Trump did not endorse in the may primary and all members of Congress, Republican members of Congress, who are on the ballot, except for Dave, I'm sorry, Dave Joyce.

(Mike laughing) All of them were endorsed by Trump.

All five of the executive office holders, meaning governor, attorney general, auditor, secretary of state, and treasurer.

They were all endorsed.

Are all of these people going to be there with Trump as he rallies for JD Vance?

I think that's gonna be interesting to watch.

- It is an interesting question.

Also the other good point is what does it matter in DeWine's case?

It seems like he's pretty far ahead of Nan Whaley at this point, things can change.

Does it matter to have Trump throw the MAGA part of it in there, which clearly is not necessarily in DeWine's camp?

- Well, I think it was interesting to see the statement that Trump put out saying that, basically, now that Ohio, it looks really good in Ohio for Republicans and now he's endorsing in a race where polls show Mike DeWine has a significant lead over Nan Whaley, his democratic challenger.

He also has a lot more money than she does.

So it kind of makes you wonder did, is Trump trying to, in the sense, potentially ride DeWine's coattails by endorsing him along with everybody else that he's endorsed here?

You know, that's a question I think that is one to be answered, but certainly, like you mentioned, DeWine did accept this endorsement, said he was grateful to President Trump for the endorsement.

So I think that there could be some moderate or independent voters who might look at that a little bit critically.

But again, the polls and the money certainly seem to be in the DeWine camp right now.

- Yeah, for sure and the former president, one of the things he's coming with is not just his endorsements, but also his ideas.

He still claims that the 2020 election was stolen and you reported, and I listened to that this morning, how that claim is leading to public records requests from boards of elections that are just swamping Ohio Boards of Elections, people wanting to get evidence of what votes were cast and all that stuff.

Even though these things have been litigated and have been audited.

But now we're seeing boards of elections being strained by these requests.

- Yeah and there're a small number of requests, for instance, the director of the Warren County Board of elections, who's also the head of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials, Brian Sleeth, he's the guy I talked to for a lot of this.

He said that, you know, he's only gotten seven requests, but they're asking for all the documents from the 2020 vote.

180,000 ballots, all the voter ID envelopes from early voting, the register tapes, as he called them, that the voting results tapes from the voting machines, which can be 60, 70, 80 feet long.

People are asking for all of these.

These requests that are coming in are identical, but from different people.

And so, on a hunch, I put out an email to Tom Zawistowski, who is a former, he's a Portage County activist, longtime Trump supporter and he said, yeah, he's been telling people on his podcast to do this at the direction, essentially, of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who's been leading this charge with no evidence behind it to ban voting machines and try to claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

So and I think that there's more potentially going on here because this is really one of these things that could cause problems for elections officials as they're trying to go forward and operate the coming election, which is eight weeks away.

And there could be more public records requests even coming in that could slow things down, especially in smaller counties.

So it's, I talked to Michael McDonald, who's University of Florida Professor of Political Science.

He also helped with the map-making in the redistricting saga way back, a couple months back.

But he said that this seems to be like a way to capitalize on a loophole in public records law and gum up the whole system.

And that's really concerning because you want elections to run smoothly, you want them to be accurate and if there's all this attempt to try to slow it down and cause problems, even though it's legal, it's just really concerning, I think, to a lot of elections officials.

- Is it at all possible that Michael Lindell is just trying to get free stuffing for his pillows?

(Karen laughing) - He's certainly, I mean, you have to wonder.

He's spending so much money on these claims that have been litigated over and over again, that there's nothing there.

And yet he has spent so much time and money and his own, whatever personal capital he had on this.

It's just amazing.

(tense orchestral music) - Cedar Point says it's the end of the line for the Top Thrill Dragster.

The ride was billed as the tallest and fastest in the world when it made its debut 19 years ago.

But the Dragster has not been open since last August, when a bracket dislodged from the ride and critically injured a patron.

You're a big Cedar Point fan.

- Big Cedar Point Ride Warrior.

- And you've ridden this monstrosity?

- Oh, yeah.

I did and, you know, just the other day I was, when this was announced, I was just reflecting because this opened when I was really little, obviously.

And so I just remember, it was like part of the whole Cedar Point experience growing up was you'd go, you know, I'm little, I'm probably not tall enough to ride it yet, but just looking at it terrified me and my little brothers and all my friends, you know, and it was like every year, it was like is she gonna ride it, once I was tall enough?

And every year I'd chicken out.

I mean, because it was just so intimidating.

And I finally did it, I think, in middle school.

And it was, it was really fun.

It wasn't, I will say it's not my favorite just because the lines were really long for such a short ride.

But man, and one time I rode it when, you know, right before the park closed and it's nighttime.

- [Kabir] That's always good.

- And they had to fill another, I'm just really gonna reminisce now about Top Thrill Dragster, I guess.

- [Kabir] Let's do it.

(Mike and Kabir laughing) - But no, we, it was like we were the last ones to go and then they had to fill the last train of the night, they didn't have enough people, so they were like, do you wanna go again?

And so we got to go again.

- [Mike] Yes, I do.

- And so anyway, it was just so fun.

- If you don't know about this thing, it basically shoots you - Oh, right, I guess I should give context.

- Straight up in the air.

It looks like a, like a big, I don't know, some people think it looks like a big middle finger, but it's a, you go straight up in the air and then straight back down and sometimes you don't get to the top and so you go back down backward.

- [Anna] Right, the rollbacks.

- [Kabir] Yeah, that's not terrifying.

- No, not at all.

Are you, a paperclip, somebody says, "Okay, I go with a finger, someone else has a paper clip."

Paperclips probably better.

- [Kabir] Something like that.

- Kabir, what about you, have you ridden this thing?

- I have, my daughter, same thing for my daughter as you, where, you know, is she tall enough, is she going to it?

But she loved coasters.

So we got to go, we avoided the line because she did that Plinko thing, where you can get the free, right.

- Oh, one of the games, yeah.

- So we did right next to it and I'm like, you know, we're never gonna win, we're gonna win a thing of popcorn.

We won that and so then we got to go right to the front of the line and went and I think that was only the second coaster.

She went on the Iron Dragon and then that one.

- [Anna] Wow, oh my gosh.

- And or no, Valraven, maybe Valraven, I don't know.

- You have to work your way up.

- Yeah.

That was the second in her life, so she, you know, that set her up.

- That's a catapulting, you know, to the top, though.

That's not even working your way up.

If you've only done Iron Dragon and then the Dragster.

- She was great, she loved it.

And as you said, you know, at sunset, when you get and you can see everything.

It's very cool and, yeah, it's sad to see it go.

It does concern me a little because we've been hearing all these reports how the company is migrating slowly to North Carolina and this and what's the future of Cedar Point?

I mean, I don't think they're ever going to close Cedar Point, but as the premier park, at least in east of the Mississippi, it concerns me when they're closing something.

- Well, it's gonna be re-imagined.

So it said, the press release said that the Top Thrill Dragster as we know it is being retired.

So it should be interesting to see.

Some people are speculating they might just put a new launch system on it.

And so, and then maybe rebrand it with different colors, so.

- Okay and maybe tighten the brackets a little bit.

- Right, because that was such an awful, - [Kabir] That was horrific.

- I should say, too, horrific, awful situation, - [Mike] Terrible.

- You know, caused major, serious damage.

So, you know, probably a good thing in the long run.

- Karen, I know you're chomping at the bit, 'cause you're the big rollercoaster head in this group.

- Yeah and I should say that Cedar Point in an investigation was cleared of any wrong doing there.

But the part did fall and hit a woman in the head, critically injuring her.

But yeah, I have some people who are even more daredevil in my family, who I stood in line with them and I said, "I'm not gonna ride it, not gonna ride it."

And they shamed me so much when we got to the front of the line that I had to get on it.

And it was amazing.

I only got to ride it twice, but it was awesome.

It was a terrific ride and I'll miss it.

- And I've ridden that as well, just the one time.

So everybody in this conversation has ridden the Top Thrill Dragster.

- [Anna] Because when you ride it once you're like, - Goodbye.

- [Anna] "Okay, I did it."

- I did.

(tense orchestral music) - Over the past week, Ideastream Public Media has been hosting a journalist from India as part of a program with the Cleveland Council on World Affairs.

Krishna Chaitanya is an investigative journalist covering environment and climate change.

Let me ask you just in general about your visit so far, and you've got a few more days here.

What have you been your impressions of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio?

- It's absolutely fascinating to visit some of the places.

I've been to the Cedar Point, which it was the, which was a discussion point sometime back.

So and I've been to Amish country, which they, their style of leaving, sustainable living is quite fascinating and we have a similar sort of community back home in Pondicherry.

It's one of the union territories in India, where we have Auroville community, which is similar to this, if not as good as this.

So, mean, that's quite fascinating and yeah.

- So you went out to Amish Country and just sort of, you did some report.

Did you do it for your newspaper or for?

- I am planning to write a piece for my news station now.

- Just about what life is like and how sustainability is achieved?

- Yeah, yeah, I mean, their people are not using electricity, if not all, a majority part of community is not using the electricity.

They're going in horses, buggies, which I happen to get a ride off it.

- Is that right?

- Oh, yeah.

- How was that?

- Absolutely fascinating, yeah.

So, I mean, the food is awesome.

The chicken tastes better like anything else.

So I'm a foodie, so it's, it was very good, yeah.

- Monday on The Sound of Ideas on WKSU, we'll discuss the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, who died Thursday at the age of 96.

The transition to Charles as king brings with it many questions about the future of the monarchy.

An expert from Case Western Reserve University will give insights.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.

(soft cheerful music) (resonant dreamy music)