(upbeat music) - Akron has reinstated an overnight curfew as calls for accountability persist in the wake of the police shooting death of Jayland Walker.

A Republican state representative says she would consider a ban on birth control in Ohio.

Meanwhile, a Democratic state senator is pushing a bill that could open men to civil suits if they cause unwanted pregnancies, even in consensual relationships.

"Ideas" is next.

(upbeat music) Hello, and welcome to "Ideas".

I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks for joining us.

Protests and calls for reform persist after the release of body cam video in the police shooting death of 25 year old Jayland Walker in Akron, an overnight curfew was reinstated.

Ohio's Heartbeat Bill is in effect after a court denied an attempt to block it.

Now, how far will Ohio lawmakers go?

Is a birth control ban possible?

An Ohio lawmaker says she'd consider it.

A state senator has proposed a bill that would allow pregnant people to sue men for unwanted pregnancies in response to the six week abortion ban now in effect.

And Supreme court Chief Justice, Maureen O'Connor pays a political price for siding with Democrats in the map making mess.

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

Joining me this week, Ideastream Public Media Senior Reporter Nick Castele, an Akron Canton reporter, Anna Huntsman.

And in Columbus, Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau news editor, Andy Chow.

Let's get ready to round table.

Calls for accountability and reform continue more than a week after the fatal police shooting of Jayland Walker in Akron.

The city was on lockdown again overnight Thursday, a 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM curfew continues until further notice.

Anna, what about the curfew, why was that re-implemented?

- Well, we can probably assume that it's because of these ongoing protests that have happened in the downtown area.

On Wednesday night, there was one where actually activists from out of state were coming and there were more arrests and things like that.

But we've also, I heard because the Akron City Council decided to make its next meeting virtual next week.

And I checked in with them to say, why is that?

Because community members were saying, "Why won't you face the public essentially?"

And I actually heard from a spokesperson that the municipal building, which is also downtown had been receiving bomb threats.

So there's safety concerns happening and so we can assume that's probably why.

And like you mentioned, Mike, it's gonna be in place from 10 o'clock to 6:00 AM every night until they reissue another order.

- What we've seen in Akron though, the city isn't burning.

Just to be clear, there has been some damage, some windows broken, I think maybe burning, there was I think some dumpster fires.

- [Anna] Dumpster fires, yeah.

- But what we've seen is it being controlled, whether it's because of this curfew and because of the way the police are responding or because people aren't becoming violent is, by their own volition is the question.

But the fact of the matter is they've been essentially peaceful protests.

- The mayor himself came out with a statement earlier this week saying the majority of protestors have been peaceful.

And again, this is what the Walker family has been calling for is peace.

And I've spoke with many people who have been protesting and they attest that it has been largely peaceful.

They're saying that there's maybe been some outside agitators that have come in and been a little more destructive.

But they've also said that police, I mean, I was told this yesterday by a protestor that police are getting "The wrong people".

So there's people that they're saying have been arrested, who were peacefully protesting.

I spoke with someone who was arrested and was later released on signature bond.

And he said he was arrested as he was trying to walk back to his car after one of the protests over the weekend.

And he was told that he was breaking curfew and he was like, "I didn't know there was a curfew."

And he ended up getting charged with writing and failure to disperse.

So there's a lot of questions.

- One of the criticisms of the folks who are protesting is the fact that the city is taking a pretty hard line.

There have been rubber bullets fired they say, tear gas as well that's been released into the crowds.

They want that, there's a group and you reported on this yesterday, several groups that say that needs to end.

- Yeah, they came out with a list of demands yesterday.

They already had a list of demands specifically about police reform, but they kind of added to it after the protests and what they say is the aggressive response by police.

Yes, calling for them to stop using tear gas, stop arresting peaceful protestors.

They're also asking for the remaining people who are jailed to be released and for their records to be expunged and things like that.

So essentially calling for also a conversation too.

They want to talk to the mayor and other city officials and they had heard from, the department of justice has these teams that go out and try to ensure peaceful protests and negotiate with police and protestors.

And they were apparently asking the Akron groups to do this with police.

And they're saying, "Well, we've tried, we're being peaceful.

"It's the police that are escalating all of this."

- Couple of the groups, Freedom Block and Serve the People.

So there's a number of groups local, but Anna mentioned Nick, that there are some people that are coming in from out of town because since the George Floyd murder, there has been many times when people have seen an incident like this and mobilized and they've come from other places.

Several people with connections to other police shootings were among those arrested in Akron.

- Right, the aunt of Breonna Taylor, the father of Jacob Blake were both caught up in this Akron police response to the protest.

I believe one was arrested and Mr. Blake I think had an arrest warrant out for him related to, with charges related to these protests.

So you see people who wanna come in and make their voices heard and they are caught up in this police response to the demonstrations.

- And it appears that the warrant was because he was actually taken to the hospital first because he has some health issues.

And so there's social media video and lawyers talking about this on social media that he, I think he's doing better, I think he was potentially released.

So we're continuing to follow that.

- Okay.

Pastors and activists and protestors in Akron say they want more accountability and reforms from police.

What exactly are they asking for, Anna?

- So specific to the Jayland Walker case, they're asking for the officers, first of all, their names to be released, we do not know the eight officers yet who were involved in this.

They're asking for them to be on unpaid leave instead of paid administrative leave, that's the department policy.

And they're asking for them to be fired and then later prosecuted.

And they're also asking for an independent investigation of not just the shooting, but the department's overall culture.

But aside from that, they're also asking for things like the Chase policy to be reexamined and even abolished.

They wanna take a look at traffic violations and traffic stops and what warrants a traffic stop.

And they're also hoping that there could be a department of justice investigation similar to the one, the consent decree in Cleveland.

There's a full list of demands and we actually have that on our website in my most recent article about this.

- You can go to wksu.org or ideastream.org defined that story.

It'll be evident, the headline will bring you right to it.

So the shooting now is getting compared, Anna to the deaths of Timothy Russell and Melissa Williams in 2012, after Cleveland police fired 137 shots at their car, they were unarmed.

What we have is situation here where a young man was unarmed at the time he was shot, although police say they found a gun in his car that they say that there was a shot that came out.

There's some video from an ODOT camera that shows what they say is a muzzle flash.

So you have this situation where there's multiple, we don't know how many shots were fired, reports are more than 90.

There were 60 wounds that the young man sustained.

They could be entry or exit wound.

So you don't know how many times he was shot.

But you compare that to 137 shots, there's a big comparison going on here.

- Definitely, and I've spoken with reporters who have covered both incidents and they are saying that it's very, it's unfolding in a similar way.

And they're kind of being brought back to that time when they were first covering that, there are a lot of similarities.

Obviously the investigation is ongoing so police will be looking into, or not police, but the investigators will be looking into all this.

But the early analysis shows that kind of one difference might be that the Akron police perhaps did follow their department's chase policy.

So they had, police had to be approved by their supervisors if they wanted to join the chase and it sounds like in the transcript, you can see that.

Whereas with the 137 shots case, you had officers abandoning their patrols, even if they were told to stay put and joining the chase.

- Andy, after the Russell and Williams killing, Governor DeWine called it a systemic failure.

And now the question is, what's he saying about the Jayland Walker case?

He has pushed in the past for some sort of police reform that never came to be, has this prompted more push for that?

- It has prompted more push for that.

And like we've mentioned in what we've heard, this is not the first case of this kind of issue going on where state investigators have to come in and look into the shooting death of Black people in Ohio by police officers and law enforcement.

And back in June of 2020, Governor Mike DeWine, if you remember that was during the height of the pandemic and he was doing those daily press conferences, he called a press conference to specifically talk about the issue of police reform and law enforcement accountability in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

And in that press conference, he wrote out a pretty comprehensive plan of things that he thought needed to be done, issues where community organizations and the FOP agreed on things that they thought could move forward, such as different accountability measures, creating a licensure review program for police officers, creating a centralized database for complaints against police officers.

And then a few weeks later, even members of the Ohio House, Republican members of the Ohio House rolled out their plan.

And that had 15 different proposals to again, extend the idea of police reform in Ohio.

So back in the summer of 2020, there was a lot of talk about this.

And it actually seemed to be gaining momentum on an issue where in the past it didn't really have a lot of momentum in the Republican super majority, but those things never moved forward.

It was still at the height of the COVID 19 pandemic, there were other things going on and none of that actually passed, and it hasn't even been reintroduced in the current general assembly.

- And is the governor saying it should be?

- The governor saying it should be again, he goes back to the idea that community organizations and police organizations approved a lot of these things such as psychological testing for new recruits, this licensure review program, he says that these are sort of common sense, non-controversial things.

He is calling on the legislature to go ahead and do this, to introduce these bills, to pass them forward.

He says, it's time to move forward.

- Finally on this topic, Nick, President Biden was in town Wednesday, he was here to talk about pension plans and ARPA money that's gonna rescue that for unions and his alignment with union groups, et cetera.

But he also brought up the death of Jayland Walker, suggesting the federal government could get involved here too.

- He did, he read a, it was a pretty brief statement that he read at the very beginning of his remarks.

He said that civil rights division of the justice department and the local FBI are closely monitoring the situation and they would take appropriate action if they found violations of federal law.

It was a pretty cautious and measured statement.

I think it's not dissimilar from the kind of boiler plate statement you might hear the justice department put out in response to one of these shootings.

And that really is the stance that the federal government has taken in response to, for instance, the shooting of Tamir Rice.

They wait for the local investigation to play out and only after that investigation is completed, do they conduct then their civil rights investigation.

And so I think it was the president acknowledging that this happened, but not going much further beyond that.

- And probably because of where he was, if he was visiting Topeka, Kansas, maybe he wouldn't have mentioned the Jayland Walker case.

He's here within a few minutes of where it happened.

- He's in the media market and it seems that the president and his team felt that he needed to say something, but he took a pretty cautious tack.

(upbeat music) - Beyond the Heartbeat Bill and a possible full ban on abortion, could a contraception ban be possible?

Andy, the biggest question is with a Republican dominated state house, how far will laws go?

State representative Jean Schmidt from Claremont county suggested, and she's a Republican, suggested on a radio show, she'd be willing to listen to thoughts about a ban on birth control.

- Yeah, and it's not as far fetched as some people might think.

Those types of proposals have actually been included in previous pieces of legislation that sought a total ban on abortion.

The idea of possibly banning devices like IUDs, banning the use of the pill, these are types of things that have been floated out there, discussed, even proposed sometimes.

And so that is the big question mark.

Then at this point, the legislature is on summer break until after the November election.

So we won't see a new or official new proposal until November.

And lots of people are wondering, where is this gonna go, how far is this gonna go?

'Cause as we've seen, and as a lot of people have warned even before the Supreme court ruling, that the decision to overturn Roe V. Wade opens a lot of doors to a lot of unknown consequences out there.

And the idea that birth control could be among the things that are prohibited, some types of birth control at least is not too far fetched.

- I think it's interesting 'cause I've heard people who are pro-abortion activists say, "Hey, this is a first step in a slippery slope "and they could be coming after "all of our reproductive rights and contraception."

And people saying, "No, that's not possible."

And then you hear an actual Republican state representative saying, "Sure, that's possible."

- I mean, if you talk of even five years ago when you heard different legislatures talking about things like the 20 week ban on abortion, the six week ban on abortion, there were advocates who say, "This is just one step towards trying "to overturn Roe V.

Wade."

And you would have Republican legislators say, "No, no, no, that's not what we're doing.

"We're just trying to put more guardrails in place "as a state on abortion."

So it's again, it's not too far out of the question to wonder what might happen next.

Now there are certain legislators in the Ohio House and in the Ohio Senate who would not want that and who do want to strictly follow just the idea of banning abortion and in tandem with the ruling, the majority opinion ruling with the Supreme court of the United States.

But you also have members like representative Jean Schmidt who has introduced other pieces of controversial legislation, who isn't afraid to talk about going one or two or three steps further.

- Women are leaning on lawmakers to do something and Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, who's not a lawmaker but an executive here in Cuyahoga County says he plans to introduce to council a way to financially support reproductive healthcare.

- Right, Budish announced a list of policy proposals.

He says he's going to bring to county council among them are county financial assistance for employees who have to travel out of state for abortions, helping to pay for at least travel, lodging, that sort of thing.

He also proposed grants to other organizations that provide these kinds of services to county residents.

And Budish also wants to make it against county rules to discriminate against an employee who has had an abortion.

I think that's a nod to the fact that if you need to ask your HR director for compensation to go outta state, now your employer knows this really personal health information about you and you wanna make sure that they're protected against any kind of discrimination.

I think this is another example here of democratic local officials trying to take a stand on abortion rights, trying to eek out a space in their jurisdiction where they say, "We are not going to enforce abortion bans "and we're gonna try to provide people the assistance "they need to obtain abortions."

And I think it's another case where you will probably see a conflict with the state legislature down the road, if history again is any example.

(upbeat music) - An Ohio state Senator is suggesting that men should be held accountable for unintended pregnancies and open to civil suits now that abortion is largely not an option.

Andy, what are the chances of bill like this gets a hearing?

- Oh, if it gets a hearing, I would say that most of the time if somebody in the legislature sponsors a bill, it's courtesy of the majority leadership to still allow for at least a sponsor hearing.

Now, sometimes there are bills that are introduced that are just so against what the majority wants that they won't even get a hearing on it.

And because we are kind of pushing up to the limit of lame duck in November and December when they do come back into session, I think this might be one of those bills that doesn't even get a hearing.

And just to remind people, Ohio's legislature is a Republican super majority.

This is from democratic Senator Tina Maharath, and this is gonna be something that absolutely would not pass in the legislature with the makeup of the leadership that there is now.

But she does make a lot of points about the idea that the choices now for pregnant people are limited with the new ban on abortions.

And that might put somebody in a situation where they are financially not able to support themselves.

And so to be able to file a civil suit against the person who played a role in the pregnancy, the man who played a role in that unintended pregnancy, that is an option that at least Senator Maharath wants to put on the table.

- I mean, it does take two.

- Well, and it calls to mind some of the bills that Nina Turner proposed in the State Senate maybe a decade ago or so when some of these earlier abortion bans were proposed.

Basically trying to turn the spotlight around on the men in that situation and I think really it's maybe something that everyone knows is not going to pass, but it's trying to get a conversation started, and it's trying to basically change the terms of the debate.

- Yeah, indeed.

Andy, it's just one of several measures democrats are proposing to help parents if they have to bring an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy to term, this law should it pass would allow lawsuits against the men who are responsible for pregnancy, but there's more that they're looking to propose.

- Yeah, and this was a package of legislation that the House and Senate Democrats introduced.

And it was also aimed for people, it was definitely introduced as a way to sort of counteract the new ban that's now in place and that was upcoming when they introduced it.

But it was also intended for people who did want to start having children in the state of Ohio to make it easier on them.

They really focused on the idea of affordability and the idea of affording to start a family or to have a baby.

And so the idea of creating tax breaks in order to buy diapers, creating a sort of fund or grant to be able to buy formula, which could be very expensive.

Formula which a lot of times people need if they are adoptive parents.

And so there were a lot of issues like that that were put on the table.

These were things that were also sort of rejected by Republican leadership in the House and Senate.

But I do think that some of these issues such as addressing the idea of diapers and formula might actually get a hearing and could maybe get a little bit of support among some members on the Republican caucus side.

(upbeat music) - The fight over the new map making process came at enormous political cost for Ohio Supreme court justice, Maureen O'Connor.

The Republican sided with the court's three Democrats in each challenge of the redistricting commissions maps.

The USA Today Network Ohio Bureau got a hold of texts between lawmakers through a public records request and reported on the effort to try to impeach the chief justice.

One text read according to reporter Laura Bischoff, included a meme based on the "Wheel of Fortune" game show and a lawmaker asking to buy a vowel, the puzzle solution for the meme, impeach Maureen.

Andy, is this a joke or are they, or is there some serious effort to impeach somebody whose term is ending not too long from now?

- So this was a text chain that went back and forth among Republican legislators back in February and March when the Supreme court for a third time rejected the Ohio redistricting commission's maps that gave an undo favorability to the Republicans in those districts.

And so at the time, it was definitely serious and we all thought it was serious.

And now to see this text thread, I think we all know sort of just how serious it was back then.

Now, I think that when you talk to legislators, they're not really moving in that direction anymore because Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor is term limited.

There's already a race going on to vote on her replacement.

So I think right now talks of impeaching O'Connor will subside, but it really points out just how frustrated the legislature, the Republicans in the legislature were with their fellow Republican Maureen O'Connor.

And the other thing here is it wasn't just redistricting, the Supreme court also made a pretty big decision when it comes to bail reform and bail laws, and it upset the Republican legislature so much that they put a new issue on the ballot to change the state constitution and avoid or bypass the Supreme court with those types of bail laws in the future.

- I'm naive obviously, but shouldn't a judge rule based on the law and you shouldn't say that wasn't a Republican ruling or a democratic ruling and so now we're mad about it?

- You would think so.

And I think if you ask a lot of voting rights advocates, they say that's exactly what Marin O'Connor is doing.

That she is not making a decision as a Republican or a Democrat, but as a jurist who is making the decisions based on the law.

- And here's a very adult response, her portrait has been removed from the state GOP offices.

- Yeah, that was a report from Jesse Balmer with the GNet USA Today Ohio Bureau.

And I was actually in the meeting with Jesse and we were looking around the walls and you saw all the statewide Republican office holders and you noticed there was sort of a bear patch missing and we're like, "I bet that's Marin O'Connor's picture."

- [Anna] Wow.

- Wow is right.

(upbeat music) Finally, a new park will open next week inside Cleveland's Tower City Center.

Dan Gilbert's Bedrock company has partnered with the Conservancy for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park to turn the fountain in the center of the mall into a park.

Skylight Park is as known, will feature Midwest foliage and greenery as well as benches and picnic tables, all indoors?

It might be a better draw in winter I'd assume.

It's part of an overall effort to revitalize Tower City as a shopping area, not a mall.

It's a marketplace, is the branding for it.

And if you think it's a bit odd to put a park inside a mall that is across from the most prominent park in Cleveland Public Square, well, you're not alone, Vince Gregorick at Cleveland Scene hammered the idea with his keyboard this week.

He wrote that the Skylight Park was made for those who, "Thought Public Square suffers from too much fresh air "and green ambience and lacks the appeal "of sad suburban mall vibes."

(Nick laughs) That's not a great start.

- Suburban malls, they've got little trees inside, they used to.

I am gonna miss the jumping shots of water.

There's a great like '80s or '90s vibe to that.

It always brings me back to like being a kid and going to like the Warner Brothers store or something to find a Batman toy, so I'll miss it.

- I worked for a while at Tower City.

Our offices were just above, a couple of floors above that and you'd look down on the fountain.

I thought that was really a focal point, it was kind of a cool thing.

Now it's going to be a lush indoor park.

I don't know, do we need an indoor park, Anna?

- Well, I just wanna say that a couple years ago in the winter, people kind of, sometimes there's some seasonal sadness and things like that.

You don't have a lot of light here in Ohio.

And I wanna say that one time I went to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens inside, and I walked in and just felt so much happier because of the plants and the greenery and the light that was in there.

So I immediately thought about that.

Maybe you can go to the mall instead, I don't know.

- Yeah, I don't wanna bag on it too hard because believe me in the winter, it would be a great thing.

And by the way, there's the IX Indoor Amusement Park we used to have.

So we know how to do things in, I know it's in my head guess, right?

The song is in my head.

- [Anna] All day.

- The real question is, what's gonna happen to all the pennies people through in that fountain?

- Maybe that's what's paying for the park.

Exactly, that's paying for the Midwest foliage.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89.7 WKSU, learn about the first ever National Independent Venue Association Conference.

It kicks off next week here in Cleveland and some local club owners will discuss how they continue to navigate their businesses coming out of the pandemic.

I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks so much for watching and stay safe.

(bright upbeat music)