In an 8-1 vote on Monday night, the Columbus Civilian Police Review Board recommended the removal of one of its members due to the member posting anti-police rhetoric on social media.
The decision comes in response to board member Gambit Aragon making anti-police social media posts after the cancellation of a controversial holiday story time event at a Clintonville church featuring drag queens.
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LGBTQ rights activists canceled their controversial Holi-drag Storytime, a faction of Drag Queen Story Hour geared towards small children as young as two years old mere hours before the event was set to begin.
On Saturday, the Red Oak Community School, part of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus scheduled to have a holiday drag queen event where three local drag queens would be in attendance to read books “highlighting inclusion and acceptance” to the children and would perform a few holiday numbers.
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Officials representing the City of Columbus on Thursday announced a settlement with individuals who were injured during the 2020 riots after police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.
If approved by the City Council, Columbus will dish out $5,750,000 to settle a lawsuit with 32 plaintiffs filed in federal court earlier this year.
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Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has spent a lot of time pleading for patience and talking of the dangers of rushing to judgement in reaction to the shooting death of a 16-year-old girl by Columbus police officers.
Community organizers, however, are calling for a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the Columbus Police Department, and Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said there is lack of trust between the community and police.
Yost consistently has said half-facts lead to half-truths, tweeting two days after the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, “Let’s get all the facts and find the whole truth.”
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Less than an hour after the murder conviction of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, a Columbus Police officer fatally shot Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old girl.
Body camera footage of the incident was released shortly thereafter, and shows Bryant wielding a knife in what appears to be the attempted stabbing of at least one other girl:
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The Columbus City Council is working on legislation to screen the police for affiliations with hate groups or for harboring beliefs consistent with these groups. Last Monday, Shayla Favor, a councilmember and chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, held a meeting at which she presented the outlines of her legislative initiative. There will be another hearing at Wednesday, July 20, at 3 p.m. Favor will then finish drafting police-screening legislation and include it in a larger piece of public safety legislation that will be presented to the city council on July 27, the last meeting before the August recess.
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Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford) announced he is looking into whether the Ohio Capitol can be annexed from the City of Columbus’ city limits as a result of the city not protecting the Capitol from recent protests.
“We’re researching it currently. If Columbus isn’t interested in protecting state property we need to consider removing Cap Square from the City,” he said in an emailed statement.
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