Richard Weiner

On July 14 a forum on police community relations was held at the New Birth Christian Ministries on Refugee Road. The turnout, which included City Council Staffers and off duty police was less than half the size of recent local protests against police murder. There was a panel discussion which included a Westerville police department representative, City Council President Zach Klein, three representatives of the Columbus Police Department and Civil Rights Attorney Sean Walton.

“We do not come to this plaza to mourn where he fell, we come to you, we return to the living. There were others before him remember? Yes, you remember. But then the blood was hidden, it was so far. The South's rain washed it from the Earth, far far away. The People's death was as it has always been, as if no-one had died, nothing. As if they were stones falling to the Earth.

On June 6th Henry Green was a block from his home in Linden with a friend. Henry Green was 23 and a law abiding citizen with a conceal carry permit. He was armed. Two men rolled up in an SUV jumped out and shot and killed him. They only said “Stop! Stop! Stop!” and then fired before Henry Green could react. They were later identified as police in plainclothes.