72 things are banned from the RNC, but guess what isn't?
(CNN) - Slingshots, sledgehammers, rockets and ... tennis balls?
The city of Cleveland has explicitly banned at least 72 kinds of weapons, gadgets and assorted hardware from the 1.7 square-mile "event zone" surrounding next week's Republican National Convention.
Not on its extensive list: Guns.
Ohio is an open-carry state, so local officials said they cannot prevent licensed gun owners from carrying their weapons around the external security perimeter.
"Our intent is to follow the law. And if the law says you can have open carry, that's what it says. Whether I agree with it or not is another issue," Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson said at a news conference on Wednesday.
"There are certain things that go along with open carry that that person has to do," Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams cautioned. "You can't menace people, you can't brandish your weapon."
Dan Williams, a spokesman for Jackson, told CNN about open carry guns: "Bottom line, we're going to follow the law. It's state law. There's no state law on tennis balls."
Any types of firearms, weapons or explosives that are banned by the state of Ohio are also barred from the event zone.
Federal law allows the U.S Secret Service, which is administering a smaller "secure zone," to ban weapons of any kind, including guns, inside the Quicken Loans Arena, where GOP delegates will gather next week to nominate Donald Trump.
Here's a list of at least 72 things that are prohibited from the event zone:[Complete list]
Lumber larger than 2 inches in width and 1/4 of an inch thick, including supports for signs
Metal, plastic, or other hard material larger than 3/4 quarters thick and 1/8 of an inch in wall thickness including pipe and tubing.
Air rifles
Air pistols
Paintball guns
Blasting caps
Switchblade knives
Automatic knives
Knives having a blade 2.5 inches in length or longer
Cestuses
Billy clubs
Blackjacks
Swords
Sabers
Hatchets
Axes
Slingshots
BB guns
Pellet guns
Wrist shots
Metal knuckles
Nun chucks
Mace
Iron buckles
Axe handles
Shovels
Fireworks
Rockets
Sound amplification equipment
Drones and other unmanned aircraft systems
Containers of bodily fluids
Aerosol cans
Pepper Spray and other chemical irritants
Umbrellas with metal tips
Water guns
Water cannons
Ropes in lengths greater than 6 feet
Chains in lengths greater than 6 feet
Cables in lengths greater than 6 feet
Strappings in lengths greater than 6 feet
Wires in lengths greater than 6 feet
Strings in lengths greater than 6 feet
Lines in lengths greater than 6 feet
Tapes in lengths greater than 6 feet
Glass bottles
Ornaments
Light bulbs
Ceramic vessels
Padlocks
Bicycle locking devices
Chain locks
Gas masks
Tents
Sleeping bags
Sleeping pads
Mattresses
Cots
Hammocks
Bivy sacks
Stoves
Coolers
Ice chests
Backpacks and bags exceeding the size of 18" x 13" x 7"
Lasers
Non-plastic containers, bottles, cans, or thermoses
Ladders
Grappling hooks
Sledgehammers
Hammers
Crowbars
Canned goods
Tennis balls
Cleveland police union asks for suspension of 'open carry' in wake of Baton Rouge, ahead of RNC
Cleveland, Ohio (CNN) - The head of Cleveland's largest police union is calling on Ohio Gov. John Kasich to temporarily restrict the state's gun laws during this week's Republican National Convention following Sunday's shooting in Louisiana that killed three officers and wounded at least three others.
"We are sending a letter to Gov. Kasich requesting assistance from him. He could very easily do some kind of executive order or something -- I don't care if it's constitutional or not at this point," Stephen Loomis, president of Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, told CNN. "They can fight about it after the RNC or they can lift it after the RNC, but I want him to absolutely outlaw open-carry in Cuyahoga County until this RNC is over."
So-called "open carry" gun laws in Ohio allow for licensed firearm owners to wear their weapons in public. With the exception of a small "secure zone" inside and around the Quicken Loans Arena, residents, delegates and protesters are legally permitted to walk around the city -- including within its 1.7 square mile regulated "event zone" -- with any firearm not explicitly banned by the state.
Kasich, responding to the request, said: "Ohio governors do not have the power to arbitrarily suspend federal and state constitutional rights or state laws as suggested."
"The bonds between our communities and police must be reset and rebuilt -- as we're doing in Ohio -- so our communities and officers can both be safe. Everyone has an important role to play in that renewal," he said.
Earlier, he released a video offering his condolences in the wake of the Baton Rouge attack.
Loomis also said officers here would begin ramping up inspections and oversight over anyone who is holstering a weapon entering the downtown area, where the Republican convention is scheduled to begin on Monday.
"We are going to be looking very, very hard at anyone who has an open carry," he said. "An AR-15, a shotgun, multiple handguns. It's irresponsible of those folks -- especially right now -- to be coming downtown with open carry AR's or anything else. I couldn't care less if it's legal or not. We are constitutional law enforcement, we love the Constitution, support it and defend it, but you can't go into a crowded theater and scream fire. And that's exactly what they're doing by bringing those guns down there."
The first key test for law enforcement comes Monday, as the convention opens, when Citizens for Trump and Black on Black Crime, Inc., which has marched in the past with Black Lives Matter-affiliated protestors, are among the many groups that are set to protest.
Citizens for Trump is scheduled to hold a rally expected to attract more than a thousand people to Settler's Landing Park, less than a mile from where Republican delegates will be gathering at the Quicken Loans Arena.
"We've hired special forces teams for security," the group's executive director, Tim Selaty, told CNN last week, declining to specify who would provide that extra security. "The Secret Service is well aware of what we're doing and they're going to be provided with everything they need to work in tandem with the local local law enforcement."
Alfred Porter Jr., president of Black on Black Crime, Inc., a four-decade-old anti-violence group, told CNN it would not alter a planned demonstration Monday in Cleveland's downtown Public Square.
"Nothing has changed because I still feel the same way, our message will still be the same," Porter said on Sunday afternoon. "We refuse to let anybody who has a simplistic or violent or hateful message stop the type of message that we have been sending out for accountability. Our message is not to go out there and start murdering police officers."
Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson, who is not in Cleveland, told CNN, "The movement began as a response to violence and a call to end violence. And that call remains as true today as they did yesterday and it will tomorrow."
The Cleveland Police Department did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Convention CEO Jeff Larson said that organizers remained confident in the security measures currently in place and did not expect Kasich to take any new action.
"The open carry laws in Ohio haven't changed recently, it's been in effect for quite some time, they've had a number of big events that have taken place with open carry without any issues," he told reporters Sunday afternoon. "They've been planning their security around that issue."
The union has also reached out to Police Chief Calvin Williams, asking that officers -- some of whom have been positioned alone and without vehicles -- be grouped together on their patrols, especially outside of the downtown security zones.
"We're going to be doing things differently (after today's attack)," Loomis said. "Right now, the chief of police thinks it's a good idea to have one officer without a car standing at a post in various intersections all around the city? Thirty blocks from downtown? I had a guy last night standing out there by himself without the benefit of protection of a police car. Or partner. That is absolute insanity to me. There is no reason for that. We are going to demand that the police chief -- at a minimum -- make sure that we have three officers working together, watching each other's backs."
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