‘We Are Prepared for Everything': Cleveland Mayor on Convention Security
"We’re prepared not only on a local level but state and the national level."
— -- One day before the Republican National Convention is to begin in Cleveland, Mayor Frank G. Jackson said the city is “prepared for everything.”
“We are prepared, and we’re prepared not only on a local level, but [the] state and the national level,” Jackson told ABC’s "This Week."
Ohio has open-carry gun laws, which some say could complicate security measures around the convention.
Jackson noted that the open-carry policy "is state law...whether or not we agree with it." He added that there are conditions to the law that dictate how one can handle a firearm in a public place. "You can't have open carry if you're...pointing it or threatening, that kind of thing."
On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told the House Homeland Security Committee he is concerned about the possibility of violence at the convention. “We have to be concerned about things getting out of hand, definitely,” he said.
But Mayor Jackson said he is confident that order will prevail.
“We’re not strangers to unrest and demonstrations and protests" in Cleveland, he said. "So we’re prepared for that."
In late June, Cleveland officials voted to buy a $50 million “protest insurance” policy for the Republican convention. Despite the precaution, Jackson said neither city residents or visitors have anything to worry about: “I can’t say one threat concerns us.”