Cleveland looks to shut down illegal street takeovers.

the city of East Cleveland looks to the Cuyahoga County sheriff for policing help.

And a lawmaker wants teachers to carry silent panic alarms to get help quickly when needed.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to IDEAS.

I'm Marlene Harris Taylor in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Cleveland police have made an arrest in connection with illegal street takeovers that impacted the city last weekend.

Witnesses described a scene of chaos and terror as participants blocked traffic for stunts, lit fires and waved weapons at drivers caught in the middle.

Ohio has released a report on abortion in the state and shows an increase in women traveling here to have the procedure following last year's vote to passed Constitu tional protections.

The president of East Cleveland City Council wants to merge that city's depleted police force with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office.

And a Republican lawmaker wants teachers in Ohio schools to wear silent panic alarms to be able to call for help in the event of an emergency.

Joining me for the roundtable this week from Ideastream, Public Media health reporter Taylor Wizner and associate producer for newscasts Josh Booth and Statehouse News bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get started.

Cleveland police have made an arrest in connection with illegal street takeovers that impacted the city last weekend.

drivers said that the streets were blocked, intersections were blocked.

It went out to Interstate 90 and people were doing these illegal stunts.

And witnesses say those taking part lit fires, trying to set off fireworks and brandished weapons at people.

And they've now formed this task force to look into it.

So, Josh, we're using this term takeover for what happened.

But there's other terms and people call these incidents other things, right?

Yeah.

So we've learned, you know, sideshows, exhibition, driving, honing, even this has been going on around the United States, not just here in Cleveland for many years.

In fact, Matt Richmond, our colleague, did a report for about 25 years now.

And I think when you hear it, you know, it's a street takeover.

It doesn't sound as threatening as it is.

But then when you see some of this video, people caught up in these takeovers that are there showing some people pushing down, trying to get into their cars, pushing down windows, they're pointing guns at people.

Eyewitnesses were saying that they were pointing guns.

They were having guns pointed at them.

And the big thing, a big component of this really is social media to drivers showing off, spinning their cars or setting off fireworks.

But that big component social media, really, it's organized in advance is what police are saying.

And people are recording while they're doing all these stunts to be on social media.

Now, they think that someone from the Cincinnati area can kind of organize this one, Right.

So police say they originally got the call on Saturday or originally got the information on Saturday that it started in Cincinnati.

And then from there, Columbus and Cleveland were warned.

But what happened on I-90 later on at about 4 a.m. on Saturday, I think according to police, was the most concerning because they completely stopped traffic there.

That's one.

And that's a main artery in and outside of the city.

90 west on the inner Belt Bridge and not only did they target that location, this group of people, but there were about 16 other locations, parking lots completely taken over.

It must have been terrifying for those people on I-90.

Taylor, I heard you say it's scary.

I mean, I can't imagine you're in the middle of this and it's probably chaos and you have no idea what's going on.

Yeah, absolutely no idea.

It's almost like one of the eyewitnesses that was actually involved said it's like a movie, you know?

And when you see the video, when we're talking about it, I went home.

I was talking about it that night and I thought, I don't think you realize how big this is, you know?

And then we started looking at the video and then it's, oh, my gosh, can you imagine this being us sitting down in downtown Cleveland or, you know, right near there or just trying to make your way through I-90?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then this happened.

So what?

Well, so what's going on with the investigation?

So as we know right now, Cleveland police put out a press release late last night.

They have arrested an 18 year old from Akron.

They have an arrest warrant as of this morning for a 20 year old from Barberton.

So these people aren't even from the Cleveland area or from Cleveland, I'd say.

But again, this goes back to initially police found out, according to them, that it started in Cincinnati.

They were telling everyone via social media, come to a certain location.

And that location, unfortunately, on Saturday it was in Cleveland.

And there's, you know, a lot of excitement among young people about this, the people who participate in these things, because it just so happens I was out and about on Saturday and I you know, you know how you strike up a conversation with someone in the store, just a casual conversation.

And I'm talking to this young man and I say, well, what are you doing after work today?

He says, Oh, I can't wait.

I'm going to this street takeover.

And at the time, I had no idea what he was talking about.

So I was like, Oh, okay.

But it was just like the the excitement that he expressed about participating in this, that when I think back on it now, it's like, wow.

And again, like when you're talking to somebody about it, it doesn't sound terrible.

It doesn't sound as threatening as it really is.

But yeah, it's it's horrible.

So council expressed a lot of frustration over this this week.

And they talked about this drone program that we've had in Cleveland.

We funded it.

But what's going on with the drone program?

How do they think that would have helped?

Well, by finding helping track people down, looking at cars.

A lot of people involved in this took their license plates off of their cars before they went in.

So they had to identify the cars and other areas and match them up, according to police.

But at the city council meeting on Cleveland, City Council earlier this week, they were fresh.

I mean, they were very frustrated is an understatement.

And they said, look, we know that policing is hard.

We know that there's been a shortage of people that are in the police department.

Obviously, you need more manpower, but something has to be done.

And residents, according to these council members, were are demanding it.

They need something done immediately.

And so but what the drones would have done is look for help, identify people, help maybe travel to where they were going next, if you will.

Now, the interesting thing, though, when one of the council members asked the police chief and Tod, so how did the drones play into all this?

And then the police responded, Well, it's still in its infancy.

It's a pilot program to which the council members said, wait a second, we approved money for this two years ago.

Wow.

So a lot of they're just not on the same page with this.

And the residents, according to these council members, are just not putting up with this anymore.

They're furious.

Our report issued this week showed an increase in the number of abortions performed in Ohio in 2023 compared to 2022.

The Ohio abortion report looked at the number of abortions and also the demographics of the women seeking the procedure.

So, Karen, the report says that while most of the abortions are performed on residents of the state, there's been a tremendous increase in people coming to Ohio for this procedure.

Well, this is an annual report, and it goes back to 1976 and in the report that covers last year, there was a 19% increase in the number of abortions performed in Ohio, 22,000.

That nice round number.

That's exactly the number.

Most of those were Ohio residents.

But there was an 80% increase in abortions sought by patients from out of state.

Now, that went from 7% to 12 and a half percent.

So still a relatively small number, but a big increase.

And the question is, of course, why?

And I think one of the things to think about is that there are three states surrounding Ohio that have basically total abortion bans, Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia.

So that certainly is something to consider here.

And also, when you look at the increase in 2022, that number potentially was lower because there was about three months of 2022 when the six week abortion ban was in effect.

And basically abortion was was pretty much banned in Ohio.

So the numbers this year are different from last year.

But those are two things to keep in mind.

So, Karen, we talked about these women coming from out of state.

Let's talk about the demographics, because I was really shocked to see that 50% of the abortions were women, African-American women or women of color.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

49.8% of women, black women, are the patients in this report.

And that's the largest population.

And it's worth noting that less than 13% of Ohio is black.

So this is a large percentage of a smaller part of the population.

I think it's also important to note that what in what period of pregnancy these abortions were performed, I mean, 87.6% of abortions performed on women whose pregnancies were at 12 weeks or less, 63.3.

So two thirds of those were under nine weeks.

So this is we're talking about very early first trimester abortions.

A lot of times you'll hear talk of late term abortions.

I think there was one in this report passed 25 weeks.

So abortion is really a most commonly performed in the first trimester.

So I should also mention to one of the thing that the abortion total 22,071 of those were girls under 15 years old.

Okay.

So we often hear about teen pregnancies.

So they they weren't a huge portion of the women who came to her in this report in Ohio.

Well, and certainly when you start talking about under 15 years old, I mean, you're talking about girls who were raped and that's that's it.

But and the idea that somebody under 15 couldn't get pregnant.

Yes.

It happened in 71.

Girls in this report were under 15 years old.

Wow.

I'm just going I'm just going to sit with that for a minute, Karen.

So last year, Ohio voters approved abortion protections.

Where does this process stand in implementing this amendment?

Well, the amendment is in the courts essentially because Republicans supermajority lawmakers have not made any moves to repeal any laws that would be affected by the constitutional amendment.

And so we're just waiting to find out, for instance, the six week abortion ban that I referenced, that's still in a Hamilton County court.

It got kicked down there back to that court from the Ohio Supreme Court.

We're waiting on that.

We're waiting on legal rulings in cases involving the use of telemedicine for abortion pills, the 24 hour waiting period.

All of these laws that abortion rights advocates say are now illegal under that constitutional amendment.

They're all going to have to go through the court system, which is one of the reasons why the Ohio Supreme Court races that are on this ballot, those three races are a big deal because potentially the balance of the court could flip.

It would take all three Democrats to be elected for the balance of the court to flip it.

That does make the Supreme Court races a big deal, bigger deal than they usually are.

So people need to pay attention to these Supreme Court races, right?

You should be paying attention.

I talked to all six of the Supreme Court candidates this week.

And yeah, you should be they agree, you should be paying attention to these races anyway.

Right.

Because the Ohio Supreme Court does make decisions that impact people, people's lives every day.

So, Karen, we've heard a lot about abortion on the national level in the presidential race.

We heard about we heard it talked about in the vice presidential debate this week.

And there's some people who are talking about support for a national a abortion ban.

Are we hearing anything any Ohio lawmakers talk about that?

Well, certainly you have lawmakers who want to see a total ban on abortion.

In fact, today is the march for life that abortion opponents are holding, starting at the state house and going around in the downtown area.

And so there'll be a lot of attention paid to this issue.

But, yeah, I mean, the question has been, for instance, for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, if he would vote for national abortion ban.

And the question's been asked of former President Trump when he signed a national abortion ban.

And a lot of times the pushback will be, I don't want a ban, I want restrictions.

But Marino has said that he's 100% pro-life and that no exceptions.

So these are these are questions here.

Of course, his opponents, U.S.

Senator Sherrod Brown, the Democrat who's in the office now, has been on record repeatedly as being very supportive of abortion rights.

So this is an issue that especially Democrats have wanted to push forward in this election, because, again, 57% of voters last year approve of reproductive rights and abortion access in the Constitution.

So Democrats really feel this is a winning issue and Republicans quite often feel that it's not a winning issue for them.

The president of the East Cleveland City Council wants Cuyahoga County to help as the city's police force shrinks.

Twice in Billings told a council, a county council committee, that he wants the city's police department to merge with the county sheriff department.

So, Josh, let's back up and let's talk about why the East Cleveland police ranks have dwindled.

So, yeah, good question, Marlene.

In recent years, more than a dozen East Cleveland officers have been indicted on charges, corruption charges, everything from felonious assault, civil rights interferences, tampering with evidence, dereliction of duty.

Last year, two of the former officers were sentenced to prison.

The former East Cleveland police chief was pleaded guilty to a single charge of failing to pay the taxes.

The police chief.

Yes.

Yes.

So this was obviously look, big picture, the morale is low.

It's hard to get people in there to work according to the city council president in particular, Billings said because of the money, too.

They they don't have the money to pay.

He said in the committee meeting that I was monitoring while this was while he was addressing the safety committee and county Committee Safety Committee, he said, look, we're paying these police officers what a security guard would be paid in some instances.

So recruitment.

Yeah, very tough.

Is that that community, East Cleveland, has been suffering for a while with a lot of decline.

So it's no surprise that their tax rolls are dwindling.

So, Josh, how does Billings propose this work and how did the council committee, you know, react to this proposal?

Well, you know, Billings was almost begging, saying, look, we need help.

Please do something.

And he was willing to pretty much do anything.

I mean, his big stance was, look, you can take our money that we have in the budget for the police department and you guys handle it.

You know, that's what what Billings was saying, too, where council then said, wait a minute, if we do this for you, we're going to have to do it for everybody else.

If we do police, then we're going to have to do fire.

If fire, we have to do EMS, etc., etc.. Something they did a number of years ago was called impact units throughout the county, where they go into the sheriff's deputies, go into areas that need help temporarily.

And this is something that they're discussing, according to the city council members or county council members, something that they're discussing and something that, look, the East Cleveland Police City Council president says, yeah, let's anything at this point, we just need more people on the ground.

So it sounds like the county is worried they maybe can't afford it either.

And so let's provide some temporary help at times when you need it, But we're not going to take it over totally, it sounds like.

Yeah.

And it sounds like what they're saying.

Yeah, well, it's not necessarily that they can't afford it.

It's that they it's almost a look, if we do this for you, we're going to have to do this for everybody else.

You know, a fair thing.

So and not only that, when does it stop?

Do we do police, do we do fire?

Do we do EMS?

Do we do ambulance?

So it's it's it's one of those things that they're going to tread very lightly on and really think about this, I think, and maybe bring back bring back some of those impact units, because that really seems to be the only solution.

Right, as far as the county is concerned for helping them.

Well, we have an email from Pat from East Cleveland, the VP of the city council.

And Pat says East Cleveland needs and not only for our police force, we need equipment for our fire department, we need our local government funds back.

We need audit the auditor of the state to do more audits.

There's a lot more work to be done.

So that's the VP of the City Council of East Cleveland weighing in on our conversation here today.

A Columbus area Republican state lawmaker wants Ohio teachers to wear silent panic alarms, though wearable panic buttons will give teachers and staff an easy way to call for help in the event of an emergency.

Including a school shooting So how would this work and how would it help a teacher in an emergency when time is critical, such as a school shooting scenario?

Well, this is known as Alyssa's law is named for Alyssa Althoff, who was a 14 year old freshman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, when she and 16 other people were killed on February 14th, 2018.

And seven states have passed a version of this law, and it basically allows school employees to require school employees to wear these silent mobile panic alarms.

And what would happen is if there were an incident, anything from a medical emergency to an active shooter situation, then any employee who's wearing one of these can press the button a certain number of times, and that would summon law enforcement and alert the rest of the school system that this is happening.

And this was in effect at Appalachia High School in Georgia, where the most recent mass school shooting that's gotten a lot of attention was and Georgia does not have that law requiring it, but it just happened that the school district had instituted these mobile alarm systems.

And so it's credited with saving lives.

Now, there are four people who are killed at that school shooting, but it still is credited as being one of the reasons that that number was not higher.

And Michelle Reynolds, who's the Republican senator who sponsored this bill, said that basically we have required equipment like sprinklers and fire alarms.

This is just another potentially required piece of equipment.

And she notes that this does not infringe on constitutional rights, which, of course, a lot of people would ask, why not just do some more work on gun control legislation?

Well, this is another effort to try to go the other way and secure school buildings and deal with the problem in that direction.

So, Karen, you mentioned Georgia, that you said they didn't have it officially on the books there.

But are there other states that do have this on the books already?

Yeah, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Oklahoma and Florida.

And so Ohio could potentially be the eighth.

But it's important to remember that we are close to the end of the legislative session right now.

There are a lot of bills that are waiting for action and lawmakers aren't set to come back until after the election.

So this may not be something that goes forward immediately.

But I wonder if we're not going to hear about that because L'Oreal, to have who was Alice's mother, is involved in this and actually actually reached out to me following my story to make sure that I was aware that not only was the March for Our Lives campaign started by Parkland students, that's a big effort by younger people and voters to enact gun control legislations, but also a group called Make Our Schools Safe, and that's a school based group that really wants to develop a culture of safety and vigilance in schools.

So are they saying that there's a chance that this might move this session still?

Oh, I don't know.

It's really again, there's hundreds of bills that are waiting for action.

And so I don't know if this is going to be a priority.

It feels really late, but this could be one of these bills that you have lawmakers now proposing measures right now that they talk about being conversation starters, that they know they're not going to get passed this time, but that they'll come back in the next legislative session starts in January.

a Cleveland Workforce Equity organization says black women in the city of Cleveland still face significant adversity in the workplace, classroom and the doctor's office Bloomberg CityLab ranked the city of Cleveland, the least livable place for black women in this country in a 2020 report.

So, Taylor, let's talk about the organization and the working that put the local report together.

How did it come to be?

Yeah, yeah.

This this is an issue that we've been talking about for years now, going back to 2020 when Bloomberg City Lab came out with this report that, you know, looked at outcomes and for black women across the country and it determined that Cleveland is the worst place to be a black woman for a number of reasons.

Not great news for me.

TAYLOR So it's certainly not not great for our community.

I mean, you know, when you talk about, you know, health care outcomes and education opportunities and workplace advancement coming dead last, and that is definitely an issue in terms of equity in our region.

So that report drew a lot of attention to the issue.

And this group, Enlightened Solutions, came up with another group, a working group called Project Noire, which I know Marlene you're very familiar with.

We've worked with them for our living for we podcast that you hosted and basically the the project here was to investigate how things how conditions really are in Northeast Ohio, in the greater Cleveland area.

And by doing that, they created two surveys.

This most recent report is the second survey after four years and they surveyed 1300 black women about experiences.

And it was a pretty heartbreaking report.

I got to say, some of the things these women talked about, just really gut wrenching.

So they did the original report in 2020.

And as you said, we based much of our podcast Living For We.

That was the foundational resource research for the podcast.

So now a new report in 2024.

So what's changed between 2020 and 2024?

Sadly, not much.

It's still a tough place to be a black woman.

If you listen to the women who were surveyed as part of this report, you know, they shared experiences, you know, in in the classroom, sort of feeling invisible to their professors, feeling like even though, you know, they're making gains and getting more higher education and then really ever before that, they're sort of being stopped from advancing, you know, and having their ideas really taken seriously and just feeling kind of excluded and isolated.

That's something we they heard a lot in this report.

They also heard that, you know, things in the workplace are sort of malicious gossip.

Unsubstantiated rumors have really affected black women's ability to, you know, thrive in their careers.

A lot of women reported that issue in their workplaces.

So these are sort of some themes that are coming out that even though black women in our region are doing very well for themselves, they're still facing these sort of barriers that may be invisible to people if they don't hear directly from these women.

Obviously, they are aware of what's going on, but it's really raising alarm bells, I think, about, you know, how we're treating all members in our community.

And if we want to thrive as a community, everyone should be able to thrive.

So there's really a call to use this report to make policy change in our region.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven WKYC, we're going to preview the two presidential candidate townhalls targeted toward Latino voters happening next week hosted by Univision.

We'll talk to Latino organizations in Ohio to learn more about the various issues important to voters in this diverse community.

I'm Marlene Harris, tailor in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching.