Matthew Richmond

Updated: 5:46 p.m., Monday, July 6, 2020 Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson issued an order Friday afternoon requiring face covering anywhere in public in Cleveland. Jackson's order also set a maximum occupancy of 50 percent at all bars and restaurants. The city will shut down any bar with two violations of the maximum occupancy order.

Cleveland expects two more years of federal oversight for its police department before being freed from what was meant to be a five-year consent decree. The city’s consent decree coordinator, retired judge Greg White, told city council’s safety committee Monday the city is not yet in compliance with the reforms included in its 2015 agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. But the city has turned a corner, he said.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has blocked a lower court’s order to remove hundreds of inmates vulnerable to COVID-19 from Elkton federal prison. The ACLU of Ohio is considering appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, which had previously blocked the transfer of inmates until the circuit court made its ruling.

The lawyer for Cleveland’s police union says an incident like the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis would not happen in Cleveland. During a Tuesday lunchtime session hosted by the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, Joseph Delguyd said the consent decree in Cleveland and the Department of Justice oversight it has brought are preventing police brutality.

The FBI on Friday arrested two out-of-state men, accusing them of bringing weapons and flammable materials to Saturday’s protest in Downtown Cleveland. According to the Bureau’s Cleveland office, agents arrested Brandon Long and Devon Poland in Erie, Pennsylvania Friday morning. The pair were stopped Downtown on the night of the protests by Cleveland police officers after the curfew was put in place.

About 150 protesters gathered outside the First District police station in the West Park neighborhood of Cleveland Tuesday afternoon to speak out against the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and excessive force by police across the country.

President Donald Trump has nominated the U.S. attorney in Cleveland, Justin Herdman, to the same position in Washington, D.C. If confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Herdman would oversee cases referred by Robert Mueller’s investigation of foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election. The office has also been at the center of the recent decisions to lessen presidential ally Roger Stone’s prison sentence and drop charges against Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Courts across the country are facing a daunting task as they look to restart jury trials. A recent attempt to hold a trial in Ashland County during April and early May showed how easily a trial can go wrong. On April 28, the first day of jury selection, the defendant, Seth Whited, began either having a panic attack or displaying symptoms of COVID-19 while in the courtroom.

A federal judge has ordered the release or transfer of hundreds of inmates at Elkton federal prison south of Youngstown, due to the coronavirus pandemic.…

Once Ohio reopens restaurants for dine-in service, Brandon Chrostowski, founder of Edwins Restaurant in Shaker Square, says he’ll be running two restaurants where there used to be one. “One restaurant will be dine-in and that will take up 60 percent of the restaurant with table space,” Chrostowski said. “And the other 30 to 40 percent of the restaurant will be where our pickup area is going to be.”