FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2016
Fortunately, This Time It Was A Failure

Buckeye Bureau Chief Gerry Manders says after all that media hype about $50 million in Federal spending to offset the City of Cleveland’s cost of providing security for the 2016 Republican National Convention, Cleveland.com is now reporting the names of only 23 people arrested through the first three days of the 2016 Republican National Convention.

The charges include felonious assault, failure to disperse, disorderly conduct and theft. Of those arrested, only five are from Ohio. The names of the protesters arrested following Wednesday’s flag-burning demonstration by the Revolutionary Communist Party, and their charges, are as follows:

• Salome Arrant, 18, of Harris, Texas. She is charged with failure to disperse, aggravated disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
• Lisa Castanon, 28, of San Francisco. She is charged with failure to disperse, aggravated arson.
• Diya Cruz, 43, of Berkley, California. She is charged with failure to disperse and aggravated disorderly conduct.
• Edward Diaz, 28, of New York City. He is charged with failure to disperse and aggravated disorderly conduct.
• Courtney Doneslon, 23, of St. Paul, Minnesota. She is charged with failure to disperse.
• Steven Fridley, 23, of Poland, Ohio. He is charged with failure to disperse, aggravated disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
• Linda Daitsman, 39, of Los Angeles. She is charged with failure to disperse and aggravated disorderly conduct.
• Ernestine Hamilton, 23. She refused to tell police where she was from. She is charged failure to disperse and aggravated disorderly conduct.
• Victoria Inguante, 26, of New Hyde Park, New York. She is charged with failure to disperse and aggravated disorderly conduct.
• Gregory Johnson, 60, of San Francisco. He is charged with disorderly conduct.
• Zane Lovitt, 39, of Templestone, Austraila. He is charged with failure to disperse.
• Richard Newburger, 59, of Chicago. He is charged with failure to disperse, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
• Zullay Pichardo, 34, of New York City. She is charged with failure to disperse and aggravated disorderly conduct.
• Rafael Schiller-Lader, 35, of Berkley, California. He is charged with failure to disperse and aggravated disorderly conduct.
• Brendan Sullivan, 33, of Normal, Illinois. He is charged with failure to disperse and aggravated disorderly conduct.
• Joseph Scogin, 38, of Oxnard, California. He is charged with two counts of assault on a peace officer, obstructing official business and resisting arrest.
• Julie Leroy, 68, of Chicago. She is charged with failure to disperse, disorderly conduct and non-compliance.
• Dominique Knox, age unknown, of Cleveland Heights. He is charged with assault on a peace officer, obstructing official business and resisting arrest.
The flag-burning demonstration was led by Gregory Johnson, who was at the center of a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that established flag-burning as protected speech under the First Amendment.

Johnson was charged with disorderly conduct after police said demonstrators assaulted two officers who were trying to extinguish the fire and ignored police orders to disperse.

The orders were given by loudspeaker by a Cleveland police commander, and Chief Calvin Williams said he told several protesters three times that the assembly was considered unlawful and they needed to leave.

Zane Lovitt, who according to the National Press Photographers Association was covering the event as a free-lance photographer, also was among those arrested on a charge of failure to disperse.

The Revolutionary Communist Party activists disputed police accounts of the incident at a Thursday morning news conference. They called the charges “self-serving lies” to justify unconstitutional arrests.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson on Thursday said the details would “play out in court.”

The arrests are in addition to the five arrests that came in the convention’s first two days.

Joselito DeJesus was arrested Monday. Police do not believe DeJesus was protesting. He is accused of trying to steal a gas mask from an Ohio Highway Patrol trooper. He is charged with petty theft.

Cleveland activist Kathy Wray Coleman was arrested Monday at Public Square on an outstanding felony warrant.

Three activists were arrested Tuesday after they scaled flagpoles outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Sharon Spencer, of Akron, Jacqueline Cepeda, of Los Angeles, and Elizabeth Paulsen, of Mt. Rainer, Maryland, were arrested on criminal mischief and trespassing charges.

Many reporters and pundits have expressed surprise at the relatively low number of arrests throughout the first three days of the convention.

“For me, one arrest is too many, whether it’s a convention or not,” Williams said. “So right now, I’m a little disappointed.”

Compassionate Conservative Stu Mahlin says he’s glad to see Jordan Sears is not on that list. Sears, a 29-year-old member of the local wing of Socialist Alternative being applauded by our Feckless Fishwrappers because he was one of a number of Greater Cincinnati residents gearing up to attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week.[READ MORE HERE]

Stu remembers at age 29 or so, he and the people he grew up with had husbands and wives, kids, dogs, mortgages and JOBS. They didn’t have — or take — time to fritter away our lives meddling in other people’s businesses. And the greater problem is, American capitalism will probably take care of Jordan Sears in his old age. And they didn’t get their names in The Fishwrap, either.

And are rallies and riots in our cities grassroots, justice events, or are they more often stage for political purposes by well paid community organizers and media. Rent-A-Riot is a provocative look into one part of the slow but systematic dismantling of our beloved country by those who hurt and discredit the ones they are pretending to help.

Curiously, Cleveland.com seems to have forgotten this part of the story, and for all those millions of dollars George Soros and the media paid to attack Trump and America at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, it would not appear as if they got their money’s worth.