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Demand for change: What you need to know Wednesday

Springfield city leaders introduced an advisory board they say will strengthen police-community relations.

The announcement was made during a city commission meeting on Tuesday morning. Mayor Warren Copeland told News Center 7′s Jenna Lawson the board is a revamped version of a previous advisory group that’s been inactive for about 10 years and will be called the Community Police Advisory Team.

WATCH >> Jenna Lawson’s TV report

WATCH >> Demand for Change: a News Center 7 Special Broadcast

Things you should know today, as a part of the demand change following the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody on Memorial Day:

GRANTS FOR CHANGE: The Ohio State Bar Foundation is providing up to $500,000 in grants to support initiatives focused on long-lasting impact and institutional change for racial justice. The initiative is to educate and support positive institutional change regarding race and the quest for equal legal justice, OSBF President Mark Kitrick said.

Grant applications for OSBF’s new Racial Justice Initiative should specifically address and support initiatives concerning systemic racism that hinder the pursuit of justice and public understanding of the rule of law for the historically marginalized communities of color in Ohio. The deadline for phase one is Aug. 17. Subsequent phase deadlines will occur on Oct. 15; Jan. 15, 2021, and March 15, 2021. Applications that are submitted after one of the deadlines will be considered for the next phase, pending availability of funds and continuance of the initiative. Organizations can apply online at OSBF.org/RacialJustice.

NAME CALLING PROMPTS LAWSUIT: A Cincinnati police officer has sued four people, accusing them of falsely portraying him as a racist and white supremacist in their social media posts and complaints to the Citizens Complaint Authority, our news partner WCPO is reporting this week.

The officer, who is being allowed by the trial judge to remain anonymous, said the insults came after he made the “OK” gesture in public at City Hall.

The suit, filed July 22 in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, says police Officer M.R. (who filed under a pseudonym) had been working crowd control in a noisy hallway during a city council committee meeting on June 24. A large number of protesters, fueled by outrage over the killing of George Floyd, had gathered to express their opinions about the city budget. Some wanted to defund the police. Someone in the hallway asked M.R. about another officer who recently left the scene; M.R. made the “OK” sign by touching his thumb and index finger together.

NPR reported the Anti-Defamation League added the “OK” gesture to its “Hate on Display” database in 2019, saying some people associate the symbol with white supremacy. The Southern Poverty Law Center has noted that the association started on the online imageboard 4Chan, where far-right users announced a coordinated hoax meant to bait left-leaning portions of the internet into embarrassing themselves by misidentifying the OK gesture as one linked to white supremacists.

The SPLC report the gesture, although not exclusively or even mostly used by white supremacists, can be an effective public dogwhistle for some on the far right because it is so commonplace — like the original hoax, “what it’s about most of the time is a deliberate attempt to ‘trigger liberals’ into overreacting to a gesture so widely used that virtually anyone has plausible deniability built into their use of it in the first place.”

Tuesday, a judge postponed the trial until Sept. 1 and is allowing the pseudonym because the officer’s attorney’s said releasing personal information puts the officer and his family in danger. The lawsuit names the four people identified as defendants -- Julie Niesen, James Noe, Terhas White and Alissa Gilley.

Iris Roley, with the Cincinnati United Front, is following the case and said M.R.‘s requests go against the First Amendment.

Other things you should know today:


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