(soft music) - Discussion of reform measures in the wake of the Jaland Walker shooting death by police, continue.

As the family claims the investigation is compromised.

Cleveland will not prosecute abortion crimes and will create a fund to help women travel out of state for the procedure.

And the State Fair returns next week, for the first time since 2019.

It's also the first time weapons are welcome.

Ideas is next.

(soft music) Hello, and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre, Akron officials are discussing several reforms in the wake of the shooting death by police of Jaland Walker, including installing dash cams in all cruisers and creating a civilian police review board.

Meanwhile, Walker's family says the investigation into his death has been compromised by comments from the head of the fraternal order of police.

In Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bibb and Council President Blaine Griffin, revealed the city's plan to protect reproductive rights, following the Supreme court's reversal of Roe.

V. Wade.

The city won't prioritize abortion prosecutions and will help pay for women to travel out of state for abortion procedures.

The Ohio Supreme Court rejected another set of Republican drawn maps.

Meaning the Ohio Redistricting Commission has to get back to work to draw up 2024 maps.

Will the result be any different?

And here comes guns and butter and funnel cakes and corn dogs.

The Ohio State Fair starts next week with its impressive butter sculptures.

And thanks to changes in state law, patrons are welcome to pack heat.

We'll discuss those stories and more on today's Roundtable.

Joining me from ideastream Public Media, Senior Reporter Kabir Bhatia.

From the Buckeye Flame, Editor Ken Schneck, and in Columbus, Statehouse News Bureau Correspondent, Jo Ingles.

Let's get ready to round table.

Akron officials are discussing the idea of a citizen police review board.

One of the reforms protestors have called for it in the wake of Jaland Walker's death.

And Walker's family says they're concerned about the investigation into the shooting.

Kabir, how has the public received these plans so far?

- Well, the protests have certainly abated, so, I guess that's one good sign that people can, the city is, is reaching people I guess, and telling 'em, look, we are aware of this.

We are going to do something about it.

They've been discussing this, having a police review board of some kind for a couple years.

And I think they, it was gonna be further in the future that they would finally implement that.

But now this has moved up the timetable and I think the public sees that, you know, things are happening.

They're not thrilled, of course, with what happened with Jaland Walker.

It would be better to have him here with us today.

He just had a birthday, but the fact that the city is responding so quickly in doing this, there has not been a consent decree of any kind making this so.

I think that's a good sign.

The public seems to be not happy, but it's positive.

- In Cleveland, there was a review board and then it got a little bit more teeth via election.

We're about to see the first Community Policing Commission come online that will have more power than just recommendations.

That's something that Lewis Katz, who's on the Cleveland Community Police Commission said needs to happen.

That it needs to be more than making recommendations.

If there's one in Akron, it has to have the power to change things.

So, is this kind of more, Ken, is this more kind of bandaid on the problem approach where you say, okay, we have a commission now, but it really has no teeth or is this as Kabir said, "People seeing it as actual progress?"

- Right, that's the question that is gonna need to be answered.

And so, I think what I was encouraged by was their promise that there would be regular reporting from this group moving forward.

And so, they're at least from the start, which wasn't exactly the same case here in Cleveland, that there would be this public transparency and accountability for.

So, what kind of progress are they making?

So, I think it's gonna be clearer more quickly, whether or not there's progress and whether this has teeth there.

- One of the things that was also talked about as a measure of reform, is having dash cams.

So, police had their body worn cameras.

We saw that very disturbing video of the eight police officers shooting 46, well, more than that, but he had 46 wounds, on Jaland Walker, but we didn't have a dash camera.

So, we didn't really see the chase as it was happening.

Would it have made a difference in this case, Ken?

- That's another hard one.

So, dash cams serve a couple of different purposes, right?

So, they can provide video evidence of one angle of what went down, but they can also affect police behavior.

As the police know that there's now video evidence of one angle of something that went down.

So, I actually did a little bit of a deep dive and found a study by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, that reported that, "Dash cams resulted in greater professionalism by police and fewer complaints against them by members of the public and that they deescalate tensions."

So, none of this answers your question Mike, about whether the dash cams would've changed anything.

- But it does mention why they're talking about it.

- Exactly, exactly.

And again, this goes back to that, there are studies out there that say that dash cams allow for greater accountability and transparency.

- Akron doesn't have dash cams now.

It did at one time, but doesn't now, Kabir.

- I was surprised when this case came up and they said that they don't have them.

And I don't think that it was, they were in every cruiser.

I mean, there's hundreds of cruisers, of course.

But this is a positive sign.

And I think as you asked earlier that this probably would've helped because there's the question of, did he fire from the car?

Did he fire at police, when he was firing for, you know, all of that would've been answered.

It wouldn't have been so nebulous.

And I'm not saying that that would've been a good or bad thing, but it certainly would've given us a fuller picture of what happened.

It would've given us the, the pursuit.

- I also noticed Anna Huntsman and her great reporting on all of this, was out in the community, I think this was on Wednesday and there was a store owner taking boards off of the front of their store.

They had been put up in anticipation of rioting and unrest in the streets.

There was some of that, but nothing major that you would, you know, that would make national news, for example.

But here we see in the city, Kabir, that people seem to be saying, all right, we're taking down the boards, we're gonna get back, try to get back to normal in terms of as much as you can.

- Hopefully, yeah, that seems to be the case.

And this was, I forget the name of the business.

I wish I could give them the plug by saying it, but they're a new business.

And they said, you know, we're gonna take them down first, we're ready, we trust our citizens, we know that people are going to be doing this peacefully.

And really, it was just that first night after the report came out, which I think was the Saturday, of July 4th weekend.

That was the night that some windows were broken, some planters knocked over, that sort of thing.

After that it has been peaceful.

And I think taking down those boards, business is signaling that Akron's not only open for business again, but we're ready to start healing.

- Another development in the Walker aftermath this week, his family held a press conference and his legal team as well, Wednesday, to criticize the ongoing investigation into Jaland Walker's death.

They said that, "Akron's Police Union, President Clay Cozart, made comments that have compromised the investigation."

The investigation is BCI, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, a state agency that's independent of the Akron police, but yet somehow Kabir, there's a thought that, there's a compromise here because of the comments by the Police Union boss.

- The Wayland, the Walker family's attorney says that they're creating facts, inserting facts that the, the head of the union, by saying this, or by talking to BCI is creating some sort of conflict or that sort of thing.

BCI says, no, we have not provided any facts to anybody.

We, you know, we're doing this independently, but now the Walker family says, look, we should take this from the state level up to the federal level, have the Justice Department look into this.

So, it remains to be seen how this will, and we've seen this, the shooting about about 10 years ago, I think, with the two people who were on a pursuit and there was the 100 and something shots, the aftermath of that legally was a lot of back and forth between the family's lawyers and the union lawyers, not so much the city, but more the union, if memory serves.

So, we're seeing the same kind of thing happening here.

But in that case, I don't think that it was at the state of federal level yet.

The family here says, take it to the federal level for the investigation.

- As I mentioned earlier, BCI is doing the investigation.

I wonder Ken, if there's some thought and you mentioned, or I mentioned earlier, that Community Police Commission in Cleveland and, and Kabir said, "Yeah, this is without a federal consent decree," In Akron, in Cleveland, there is a consent decree in place after police shootings.

I, my question is, are we headed there in Akron?

- I think that's what these reports are gonna show, right?

So, how quickly are they gonna start meeting?

How quickly are they going to say, this is what we're working on?

This is not a local story, right?

This isn't, we're not just talking about this here in Ohio.

So, the attention is certainly there.

And this is still national headlines.

I would also say that some of the national headlines came from the Akron City Council itself when they adjourned to virtual meetings, citing a threat that the police said wasn't really there.

So, there are a lot of different angles that are gonna stay on the public's attention.

And if this does indeed stay on the public's attention, there's a greater likelihood that this is more of a federal consent decree direction, yeah.

- Kabir, to answer the question you had earlier or handy dadny crack producer.

- [Kabir] Who's that, Rachel?

- Rachel Rood, has sent me a note saying that, "The store was street craftary."

- [Kabir] Hey, there you go.

- In Akron, owner was Dashika Street.

- [Kabir] Oh, that's right.

- Okay.

- Okay.

(soft music) - Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bibb, said he wanted to do a nationwide search for a new police chief and installed Wayne Drummond as an interim chief seven months ago to replace Calvin Williams.

Well, the Mayor found his new chief without even looking.

Drummond, dropped the interim title and became the chief yesterday.

Ken, is this a surprising move for the Mayor given criticism people had to the police department during the Jackson Administration, Drummond had very prominent leadership role since 2014 in that, in that police department.

- Talk about six of one, half a dozen of the other, I mean, you really can see both sides of this one.

Of just, it was supposed to be a national search.

And so, it could potentially bring in new ideas and a new presence and new personality and a fresh perspective.

But yes, it is extraordinarily expensive to do a search for a top police position like this at a time when recruiting is not so easy.

So it is a little bit surprising except that he is a known quantity, Drummond is a known quantity here.

I was also fascinated by the couple of examples that Mayor Bibb provided of saying that Drummond was the right person for the job.

That, there was, right after on New Year's Eve, that officer Shane Bartek was killed in the course of a carjacking.

And so, Mayor Bibb said that Drummond's handling of that incident was part of, you know, this decision here.

So, there was certainly evidence there that Mayor Bibb provided.

But I think a lot of people were a little bit surprised that the national search was just scratched in the way that it was.

- The Mayor said, we, I a quote, he said, "Finding a good police Chief is hard right now in this country."

And Kabir, is that the case?

I mean, I know Akron just hired its police chief last year.

I think he was from the Pacific Northwest?

- Yeah, I think that's true.

- I like how I say that with a question mark, like that's very authoritative here on The Sound of Ideas, Reporters' Roundtable.

I'm sure Rachel will look that up for me.

- It sounded less like a question, more like, is there a place called the Pacific Northwest?

So, that was what I took that as.

- Either one.

- And that is in America?

So, but, but they did just hire a police chief, but we're seeing nationwide difficult to find leaders of these departments.

- Yeah, difficult to find anyone really for anything, it seems like at this point.

In Cleveland, especially understaffed just in general and one of the things he's gonna be dealing with that they made a point to say, is that the rank and file officers, they, to attract more, they're going to give them an 11% raise over time.

Not 11% tomorrow.

Although Mike maybe here.

Okay, anyway, 11% raise and they're gonna relax a few things.

They can grow facial hair, they can spot tattoos if needed, baseball caps.

So, that's at least helping generally with rank and file officers in Cleveland.

But yeah, finding an actual chief is tough.

Akron, you know, they did their cert, I think theirs started right before COVID hit or maybe right after.

And, and even with that, it was, it was difficult.

- By the way, boom, I was right.

It is Pacific Northwest.

- There you go.

- There you go.

- Bellevue, Washington.

- [Ken] Oh Bellevue - Right.

- Okay, yes.

- All right.

(soft beat music) Cleveland will not prioritize prosecutions of people for violating Ohio's more restrictive abortion laws and acted after Roe was overturned.

And the city will create a fund to help women travel out of state for abortions.

Ken, Ohio has a pretty red state legislature, major cities like Cleveland are headed by Democrats and people who are pro-abortion.

So, what about this move by Mayor Bibb?

And we're kind of seeing it in some other cities as well.

- There is a lot to unpack here this, as, you said, this was a six part plan and the two that really jumped out at me were, well, I mean, you mentioned that, the fund as well, but also certainly the non-prosecution.

I mean, that creates a safe haven here in Cleveland.

And then also I was intrigued by the city employee insurance that the city's human resources department is exploring abortion care options regarding city employees health insurance plans, which if then the health insurance company goes in a different direction, that not only puts Cleveland at odds with the rest of the State, but it also puts the city of Cleveland at odds with their insurance carrier.

So this is, I would wanna hear Jo's perspective on this because yes, this does seem to be this really bright dot of blue in a very red state.

- And there's more than one of those dots.

We're seeing this play out, Jo.

And in fact, it's not just Cleveland, in Cayuga County, the Prosecutor, Michael O'Malley said, "I'm not prosecuting those cases either."

And in Columbus, same thing there, Zach Klein, the City Attorney in Columbus says "He's not prosecuting these types of things."

How is that playing in the legislature, Jo?

- Well, the legislature has said a lot of the leaders in the legislature have said that when they come back in November, that they want to pass an abortion ban, an all out abortion ban.

Now, we don't know if there will be exceptions there, what those exceptions will be, that they have tended against granting any exception in the past, except for the life of the mother.

So, it could be a strict abortion ban that is stricter than what we have now, with our six week abortion ban.

And I think it could also, if the legislature wanted to, they could say, hey, you know, cities, you're passing these things and trying to facilitate abortion, but we're not gonna allow it.

And they could step over it just like they have other home rule kind of issues in the past.

- Yeah, and I wanna clarify, the prosecutors are not saying we're gonna sanction this.

We think it's, it's legal.

They're simply saying we're deprioritizing it.

So, we'll get to it just the way it has been in, in some marijuana cases, et cetera.

It's just, yeah, it's on the books, but not likely to be at the top of our docket.

- [Jo] Right.

- Yeah.

- Ken?

- That uncharted territory thing is where I'm particularly obsessed because you see this in with LGBTQ protection laws, where you have all of these different communities, because Ohio does not have the fairness act and does not protect on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression.

You have all these communities and many of them are the same communities we're talking about here.

Cleveland, Columbus, who have instituted those protections because we don't have it.

That's different than what's going on here, where there is a state law that prohibits it.

So it just, there's gonna be a lot of court cases.

(soft beat music) - The Roe decision has members of the LGBTQ community worried about same-sex marriage rights, after Justice Clarence Thomas, noted "Other decisions could be revisited."

But there was some hope this week as the US House passed a marriage equality act.

Now, Senator Rob Portman, of Ohio, who had a change of heart about same sex marriage, when his son came out as gay in 2013, is a co-sponsor of the Senate version of the legislation.

"Will there be 10 Republicans to join Democrats, to get a 60 number that would break the Republican filibuster?

We shall see.

The path is not going to be easy.

LGBTQ communities are still very concerned aren't they?"

Ken, that marriage rights could be lost.

- And we do have two of the 10.

So, we have Senator Portman and Susan Collins of Maine has signed onto that.

But yes, there is a lot of concern here about where this could head.

There's a lot of uncertainty.

You know, people are saying, in including Ohio representative, Jim Jordan, who we'll talk about it in a second, 'cause he's gone all kinds of viral with his floor speech the other day.

And he, he said all kinds of stuff, very animatedly as he does.

But he, Jim Jordan, had said, well, this is an outlier.

And this isn't the rule of law.

And Clarence Thomas' decision was a side note to this, but you had someone like Senator Ted Cruz, who stood up very vocally just the other day and said, "No, this is not settled law.

This needs to be revisited."

And so, you have an active and prominent United States Senator saying, marriage equality is, is not as safe as you think it is.

So understandably, this has a lot of folks concerned.

- Let's talk about Jim Jordan, Jo.

He gave a speech that Ken said was quite.

- What would be the- - Something, let's say it was very much something.

- It was, okay.

So, Ken says it was very much something.

- Oh, and unsurprising.

- And unsurprising.

- Yeah.

- He said that, "The Obergefell decision.

Obergefell versus Hodges, that undid what 35 states have on their books, meaning that they restrict marriage to between one man and one woman.

if Obergefell were to be overturned, is Ohio one of the states that could ban same sex marriage given what we've seen post Roe or is it less likely?"

- Yes, because in 2004, Ohio voters, if you remember, approved a measure that basically said marriage was between a man and a woman.

Now, you know, we know that the whole case that opened all this up came from Ohio.

Obergefell came from Ohio.

So, you know, it could go back to that, but will it, I don't know.

That's a good question, but that is on the books.

We do know that in Ohio, if you look at opinion polls, since that time, the opinion on gay marriage has shifted in Ohio and about 70%.

And this is kind of like just looking at all the polls, about 70% of people now say they, they approve of allowing gay marriage.

So, you know, would, could they go back to the ballot, try to undo it?

There there's all kinds of possibilities that could happen long term, but yes, it could apply, if they go back to the states with this issue.

(soft beat music) - The Ohio Supreme court rejected another set of Republican drawn maps.

Meaning the Ohio Redistricting Commission has to get back to work, to draw up 2024 maps.

Will the result be any different?

Jo, the ruling will not affect this year's elections, including the primary races that already happened in May and the general election that's set for November.

And in fact, primary also that's that's coming up in August, August 2nd, but, but this would affect future stuff.

So the, basically the Redistricting Commission, which hasn't really accomplished anything, has to get back to work and try to accomplish something.

- Well, yeah, that's what the court is telling them now.

Will they follow it?

Is another question because we have seen that the typical thing that's been happening is they, they go to a federal court for relief.

So, you know, that's what happened with the legislative maps.

The supreme court never approved any of the maps.

And they went to a federal court, got that third set of maps that the supreme court of Ohio said was unconstitutional.

They got that in place for the legislative district.

Now they're being told, the supreme, court's telling them, you've got to make new maps for 2024.

With this election, as you said, we're going to go in with the maps that we've already, you know, had out there.

But you know, the thing is that we don't know what they're going to do.

The lawmakers have not been, they're good at making laws, I guess, but sometimes they're not so good at following them or they know how to skirt around them a little bit to get what they need done.

And so will the, will that happen in the next couple of months?

Will we start to see lawmakers adopt that?

That's a big question.

- And the chief justice is retiring.

So, you wonder if just, you know.

If you, it went back to a supreme court ruling and it's a different supreme court, then you know, they don't really don't have to do anything differently.

- [Jo] Yeah.

- There are no repercussions.

I don't understand why you would have to do something differently when it doesn't seem like there are any repercussions for using a map that is both confusing to people, is totally political and was unconstitutional.

So it, you would expect it's just gonna keep going in this direction.

- The dissenting opinion in the supreme court said that, "The schedule was needlessly fast.

Didn't allow for parties to fully make their arguments for the maps."

So, there is a dissenting opinion obviously by the, the justices who did not prevail.

- Yes.

So it's, I would just like to say, and I am a politics obsessed person, and I struggle enormously to follow all of this.

And that's someone who to tries to pay really close attention to it.

The average voter again, I have to imagine, and we want everybody to vote, but I have to imagine that this upcoming election, the turnout is going to be astronomically low because it's confusing to people.

And indeed, one of the representatives on the Ohio floor said, "You all know this is going to be an abysmal turnout, right?"

So, there's acknowledgement there.

(soft beat music) - The archives of the Cleveland Press, which folded 40 years ago, making Cleveland a one newspaper town, will be digitized and preserved by Cleveland State University.

I saw the story by you last month, about the 40th anniversary of the closing of the press and the push to digitize.

And there was some worry that, you know, all of this amazing colorful Cleveland history might be lost.

Now, good news, it looks like it'll be saved.

- Yeah, they donated the archive, I think in '84, the physical archive of the news, 'cause there was no digitizing back then or internet.

I mean, that we could access.

And it's been sitting at Cleveland (indistinct), they've put a lot of the photos online.

They've done a great job with that.

Now, the actual content will be scanned and searchable, hopefully.

So, if you're at home and you're thinking, oh, what happened on my birthday in 1926, you can go online and Google it and find out.

- It was the afternoon paper.

We were, we were Plain Dealer people in our household.

My dad worked at the Plain Dealer.

And so did I.

So, - [Ken] That's right.

- What was interesting is I was a carrier and then you become what's called, a sales council, where you help the carriers, sell the people that aren't getting the paper.

Imagine this a news newspaper- - [Ken] Sounds like a pyramid scheme (crosstalk) - And we'd go door to door and sell.

And then I got a job in the, on the phone bank.

Calling people and guess where the list of potential customers came from, it is that disputed list, a notorious list that Joseph Cole sold to Sigh Newhouse, as part of that payment, which was reported on in the news reel that you have in your story.

That list came to 17-year-old kids like me who called people up and said, "Hey, do you like Mike Royko?

He's in the Plain Dealer now."

And, and a buck 40 a subscription paid for college.

So, you know, I know there was a lot of nefarious activity, but long before my 30 year reporting career at the Plain Dealer, the Plain Dealer paid for college.

- Pretty good.

I have 42 questions.

I'll ask them later.

That was amazing.

- [Kabir] That sounds pretty cool.

- It was amazing.

And the press was, was an, it was really cool to have a two newspaper town.

And when you look at the video reel that I just mentioned, you had in your story, all these people are hanging around newspaper boxes.

- [Ken] Oh my goodness.

- Talking to the TV reporter saying, I can't, we can't live with one newspaper in this town.

And then you see sort of where we're at, you know, Plain Dealer Plucky and trying to continue a print publication, which are much stronger, I think online presence, but what a difference?

- How were the two different?

like what was the.

- The press was a little more sensational and scrappy.

It was in the afternoon and it was earliest to go color.

- Oh, there you go.

- Yeah.

- So, different.

And certainly people had some connections with that.

(soft beat music) The Ohio State Fair opens next week.

Bring your appetite.

And if you want to, your gun.

Weapons are welcome.

Ken, a Glock on the Mega Drop Tower or the Skyline Swing Tower, what could go wrong?

- Sometimes I think that you all are punking me here at ideastream and you're throwing in fake stories.

And then I looked it up.

Nope, this is real.

I thought this was like that store that you made up like that the fins and feathers and linens and things or whatever that was, - [Mike] Fin Feather and Fur?

- Yes, and bullets and linens.

And, and so it turns out this is a real thing.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, I think things could go wrong here.

Especially with the numbers.

They get a lot of people.

- [Kabir] And the heat.

- Yeah, and right, and the heat.

- You can't bring, - Affects people's thinking.

- You can't bring the weapons inside any of the buildings.

You have to go back to your car and you get stamped when you come back in.

So, you go back to your car and leave the weapon there.

But if you want to carry while you're in the Fair, I guess if Ohio is gonna allow concealed carry without any permit, how can you ban it in a particular place like that?

- And the organizer said that it's really good signage.

So, it should be okay.

- Well, it's gonna, people are there.

They're hot, they're agitated.

And then they've got guns.

- I would say the balloons on the Midway do not stand a chance.

- [Kabir] Yes, probably.

- Monday, on The Sound of Ideas, on 89, 7 WKSU.

Ideastream Public Media, health reporter, Lisa Ryan, is in the host chair and she'll talk to the city of Cleveland's incoming Director of Public Health, Dr. David Margolius, who just recently left his post as MetroHealth's Director of Internal Medicine.

I'm Mike MacIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.

(soft beat music)