Joe Biden’s still not on Ohio’s ballot. The betrayal of voters by Jason Stephens and Matt Huffman continues: Today in Ohio (2024)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Republican-controlled Ohio legislature did not pass a law to allow President Joe Biden on the November ballot, despite promises they would.

We’re talking about the hyper-partisanship that House Speaker Jason Stephens blamed on Today in Ohio.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi and content director Laura Johnston.

You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.

You can now join the conversation. Call 833-648-6329 (833-OHTODAY) if you’d like to leave a message we can play on the podcast.

Here’s what else we’re asking about today:

How far did Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens backtrack this week on his pledge to get legislation passed to ensure Joe Biden would be on the Ohio ballot in November?

Has the Ohio State Highway Patrol changed its ways in light of the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state?

Is this credible, or is it cooked? What did an online survey of restaurant servers and bartenders say about efforts to raise the minimum wage in the state, which would affect how these people are paid in Ohio?

Why are taxpayers footing the bill for a major design flaw at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse that is killing birds?

Lots of people are talking about the 70th anniversary of the Brown vs Board of Education ruling that declared segregated schools unconstitutional. Turns out we have a major Cleveland connection to it. What is it?

The bid by a Japanese company to buy U.S. Steel is a big national story, and Cleveland is playing a big role in it. What did U.S. Steel accuse a Cleveland-based company of doing to undermine the sale?

It’s official. Cleveland will have a tax increase on the ballot in November for the cash-strapped schools. How much, and why is it needed?

Justin Bibb’s strategies last summer lead to a remarkable drop in crime after a torris first part of the year. What is the plan for this summer?

Here’s an odd one. Why did a Cleveland Family Dollar greeter chase down and shoot a Family Dollar customer after the customer had checked out and paid for his items?

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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.

chris (00:01.963)

The betrayal of the Ohio voter is complete by our esteemed legislature. They will not do what is needed to get Joe Biden on the ballot, despite their promises. That’s the first story we’re talking about on Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland .com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston, and back from a two week break, Courtney Astolfi. Let’s get talking about the news.

How far did Ohio House Speaker Jason Stevens backtrack this week on his pledge to get legislation passed to ensure Joe Biden would be on the ballot in Ohio in November? Laura, what a travesty and a betrayal of Ohioans.

laura (00:45.958)

Right. They said they would fix this. They promised that Biden would be on the ballot. The governor said it, the legislator said it, but apparently they don’t really want to put Biden on the ballot because even though they could pass a very simple one sentence law, they jumbled it up with a poison pill of a bill and they’re not going to pass it. And they said, we just couldn’t get it done. And,

They’re kind of throwing it to the Democrats and saying they’re going to have to fix it. The national party is going to have to fix it. And what Jason Stevens said, he said, it’s a hyper political environment at this time of year. There’s some Republicans who didn’t want to vote on it. And there’s some who, who did, I think there are other alternatives. So I create a stir. That’s not necessary. I really take issue with that last part of the quote because he created the stir by not just putting it saying guys.

Ohioans deserve to vote for who they want. This has nothing to do with our hyperpartisan fight over leadership or whatever. Let’s just make it right for the people.

chris (01:48.235)

They’re the worst leaders in the history of Ohio. Jason Stevens, poster child for terrible leadership. Matt Huffman, poster child for terrible leadership. And you haven’t heard Mike DeWine talking about this. All of these guys should be shamed of themselves for what they’ve done. I love the line from somebody in the story saying, you know, Alabama had the same problem and even Alabama could get this done. We’re worse than Alabama for God’s sake. They’re just, they’re the worst. They are sh -

laura (02:06.278)

yeah.

laura (02:09.894)

That was Alice and Russo. Yeah.

chris (02:16.715)

shameless, shameless partisan hacks who don’t care about the state and the trust in government is dissolving before our very eyes because of the way they gerrymandered themselves into these roles and are betraying us with every breath they take.

laura (02:34.15)

Right. Alison Russo, she’s the leader of the House Democrats. She said that quote about Alabama, that even the Alabama legislature could get this right. She put out a statement this morning. It doesn’t really say anything new. She’s still guaranteeing that Joe Biden’s going to be on the ballot and giving Ohioans a means to exercise their freedom to vote. We don’t know what that’s going to look like. They could take it to the courts. People have said there’s a pretty good chance because of what’s happened with the Trump battles in certain states.

Lisa (02:34.446)

Lisa (02:54.414)

that’s going to look like they could take it to the courts. People have said there’s a pretty good chance that this is what happens.

laura (03:03.174)

They could have a mini convention that might get around to state law. We don’t know what their next step is. They haven’t said that. But Rousseau said she didn’t really think the legislature was going to fix this. She thought it was the least likely path. But yeah, it’s really disappointing. And it just goes to show, again, party over people.

Lisa (03:18.894)

Well, he said it was hyper partisanship and it’s like you played right into that hyper partisanship by doing this.

chris (03:23.435)

Well...

chris (03:30.667)

Look at what they spend their time doing. They spend their time passing bills that harm Ohioans because they get bought and paid for by the lobbyists and the dark money. And when they had a chance to do something simple, to rest assured every Ohioan that they would not allow partisanship to block a pathway to the ballot for the Democratic nominee, they failed to do it. They are not doing anything to serve Ohioans. They are only serving their special interests in themselves.

And really, they’ve reached a point, it’s despicable. I hope Maureen O ‘Connor’s push to get the gerrymandering on the ballot is successful, because the only way to get rid of these guys is to bring fairness back to the election system. Jason Stevens and Matt Huffman should be ashamed themselves. They are a blot on Ohio.

laura (04:19.398)

Right, I completely agree and I hope that people remember this.

chris (04:23.627)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Has the Ohio State Highway Patrol changed its ways in light of the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state? Courtney.

courtney (04:33.696)

Yeah, they have. And it appears that they’re, you know, largely following the new law after voters legalized marijuana last year. So the Ohio State Highway Patrol, you know, we were looking at specifically paraphernalia offenses, you know, so pipes, vape pens, things like that, things that are used to consume marijuana. You know, as part of the ballot initiative last year, voters also legalized paraphernalia because that had been a misdemeanor to possess.

And so the Ohio State University wanted to look at whether OSP was following this new law and whether it was still continuing to cite people with possession of drug paraphernalia. And so Ohio State University’s Drug Enforcement and Policy Center, along with researcher Peter Leisure, measured how many citations and how many arrests troopers doled out for paraphernalia in the 20 days before last year’s marijuana legalization vote.

in the 29 days between the vote and when the statute went into effect. And then in the first 29 days after the statute went into effect. And what we found kind of gives us our answer. Before the election, OSP issued 135 citations. Before the statute went into effect, there were 123 citations. But boom, once that law went into effect, there were only 15. And we reached out to OSP and one of their lieutenants told us that

A couple of those 15 incidents were miscoded, but the remainder went to individuals who were under the age of 21 for whom carrying paraphernalia is still a misdemeanor. So take all this together and it looks like OSP has changed their approach.

chris (06:15.083)

I do feel for them once the recreational marijuana is readily available because if they pull over a driver who seems inebriated, there’s no real accurate test as there is for alcohol on whether they’re affected by marijuana. It’s going to make enforcing erratic driving laws very difficult for them, I suspect, until somebody comes up with a legitimate test.

courtney (06:39.584)

Yeah, on the intoxication front, definitely something to keep an eye on. In the meantime, you know, how these law enforcement agencies adapt to these changes, I think is going to be interesting. We know officers a lot of times will say, I smell marijuana in the car, let me search it. And then that leads to a bunch of other things and, you know, negative outcomes. So, I mean, there’s going to be a lot of changes, I think, in law enforcement as this really kind of blossoms and unfolds further.

chris (07:07.019)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Is this credible or is it haha cooked? What did an online survey of restaurant servers and bartenders say about efforts to raise the minimum wage in Ohio, which should affect how these folks are paid? Lisa.

Lisa (07:21.838)

I think I’m the only one on this podcast who waited tables for a living in the early 80s, so I do have some skin in the game. But there was a survey commissioned by the Ohio Restaurant and Hospitality Alliance. They surveyed a thousand tipped workers that responded to an April online survey. In that survey, 93 % of servers and bartenders want to keep the base wage plus tips intact. They say they have a chance to make much more than minimum wage that way.

83 % say they’re making $20 an hour, 64 % say they’re making 25 to $40 an hour with tips, 85 believe that customers will be unlikely to tip above the mandatory service charge, 91 % believe they’ll make less if tips are eliminated, and 85 % that they say they can maximize their tips with excellent customer service.

chris (08:14.059)

The problem though is the people behind this survey have a vested interest in the results coming out the way they did. I wonder if there’s a way to get an unbiased survey to find out if this is real. You weighted tables. Where would you have been on an issue like this?

Lisa (08:32.91)

I would have kept my tips. Absolutely. Absolutely. The harder you work, the more you make. And we actually talked to somebody, Huber Heights submarine house bartender, Lindsay O’Dell. She says, I make over 30 bucks an hour. I make more than my engineer husband. She says that the fair wage is supposed to help us, but to be clear, she says, I’ll make less while customers will pay more. And I think that’s the key here. If you give them a minimum wage, prices are gonna go up.

chris (08:34.379)

Hehehehe

Lisa (09:01.55)

Restaurants run on a razor thin profit margin.

chris (09:05.451)

This does not help though, the people who work at Burger King and McDonald’s, because there’s no tips for fast food. Right. But the minimum wage for them is still low. I mean, the wages went up during the pandemic, but for tipped workers, yeah, you’ve got all sorts of opportunities. But there are a lot of people in the restaurant industry who do not get the tips, who aren’t paid well. Laura.

laura (09:05.574)

Can I?

Lisa (09:11.278)

But they’re not tipped workers. You’re right, but yes.

laura (09:30.758)

I did wait tables. So just put that out there. It was the summer between college graduation when I started as a temporary at the AP in downtown Cleveland. And it was probably the hardest job I’ve ever had in my life. And I did not make good money, but as a newbie, they put me on lunches. And I worked at Rockne’s in Fairlawn, which is really not an expensive restaurant. So I was like,

Lisa (09:31.854)

good.

laura (09:55.398)

God bless the people who can support their family on this because I find this very difficult. And I was not a bad waitress. I wasn’t dropping things or forgetting things. And I always refilled the pop because that’s my pet peeve at restaurants. But it’s a tough job, so more power to them.

Lisa (10:04.11)

Hehehe

chris (10:12.715)

That was the hardest job you ever had. I guess I need to delegate more stuff your way now.

Lisa (10:15.534)

laura (10:15.75)

I mean, I don’t sweat all the time if I’m in the news. I’m not technically sweating. So, yeah.

chris (10:23.339)

Well, we can change that. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Lots of people are talking about the seven. I’m sorry. I’m getting ahead. Why are taxpayers footing the bill for a major design flaw at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse that is killing birds? Laura, we like birds on this podcast. They should not die because of edifices, but why do we have to pay for it?

Lisa (10:25.102)

Yeah.

laura (10:43.718)

That’s a really good question, but that’s the way Gateway works. I mean, we could open up the whole conversation about publicly owned sports facilities and the public tax dollars that pay for them. But when there’s a renovation that costs more than $500 ‚000, the Gateway agency pays, and that’s paid by our sin taxes from people buying alcohol in Cuyahoga County, as well as the leases from the guardians and the calves. And what happened is when they designed this glass north atrium, remember the ...

the big project that updated all the rocket mortgage field house, they thought that there was going to be a 54 story nucleus tower across the street. And so they didn’t really worry about the glass facade because you do know that birds cannot see glass as a hard surface. They see the sky reflected in it. And I have a three panel sliding door in my kitchen we just put in when our renovation, I get birds hitting that and that’s just a sliding glass door. So imagine this.

giant facade on Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. They’re getting thousands of birds killed there every year and they didn’t expect that. So now they’re putting this pattern on the building that will kind of disappear for humans once you’re 12 feet away from the building, but birds will see it and they will not think that it’s Scott.

chris (12:02.027)

I wonder what they’re doing at the Sherwin -Wehams building, which is massive and very much glassed if they’ve got the same kind of plans there.

laura (12:05.478)

Right, it’s...

laura (12:11.654)

Well, I hope so, but we will not have to pay for it if they don’t. But the birds are, yeah, 2 ‚300 to 4 ,000 bird casualties a year since 2017, which that’s a lot of birds. And you think about the cleanup then, I mean, it’s not just the birds dying. And this is the time of year, this and then the fall is when we get all these birds migrating through Cleveland. So I know the birders are out trying to, you know, catching birds they don’t normally see all the time. Yeah, this is...

chris (12:14.187)

No, the birds will.

laura (12:41.094)

a lot of birds.

chris (12:41.995)

catching them in binoculars and cameras, not netting them.

courtney (12:42.112)

Can we talk?

laura (12:44.358)

Yes, sorry, they’re not taking that to them.

courtney (12:48.064)

I just think it’s worth noting like the nucleus project was on shaky ground. I know it had momentum back then, but I’m kind of floored that they relied on that in their design of this building. That seems very irresponsible to lay those plans down, premised on a project that you don’t know is going to happen next door.

chris (13:07.371)

Good point. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Lots of people are talking about the 70th anniversary of the Brown versus the Board of Education ruling that declared segregated schools unconstitutional. Courtney, it turns out we have a major Cleveland connection to that ruling. What is it?

courtney (13:24.128)

Yeah, holy moly, there always seems to be a Cleveland connection to things, but I wasn’t expecting this. Former Cleveland mayor Harold Hits Burton was one of the Supreme Court justices that decided Brown versus Board of Education. And, you know, obviously this decision overturned the racial segregation ruling that came out of Plessy versus Ferguson decades before. Burton, we found, regarded this ruling during his time on the court.

as a highlight of his service. He later wrote a letter to Chief Justice Earl Warren saying that he expected no other decision would be more significant during their time on the Supreme Court. And Burton said he cherished the privilege of participating in it. And learning about who Burton was in his time in Cleveland was just really fascinating. He was a Massachusetts guy who moved to Ohio after Harvard Law School, went on to serve in World War I, and then

returned to private practice in Cleveland. He later got elected to the U .S. House of Representatives. Then he was law director at the city. And in 1935, he won. He was a Republican. He won Cleveland mayor. He after he left the mayor’s office, he served as a U .S. senator. That’s where he worked closely with Truman. And that was the future president who would go on to appoint him to the Supreme Court in 1945, where Burton ended up serving for 13 years.

chris (14:51.595)

The tip of the hat to Bruce Hennis, longtime crisis communications guy, husband of former plane dealer, communist Regina Brett, for alerting us to this. He apparently lives in a house built by Burton’s son, and that’s why he was aware of it. I had no idea, and I’ve lived here a long time. So thank you, Bruce.

courtney (15:08.64)

You know, I thought it was so funny, you know, to learn kind of some of his highlights during his time as Cleveland mayor under him. The city hosted the RNC in 1936. Apparently Burton was also known to have, you know, broken up and gone in on organized crime and racketeering here.

chris (15:25.995)

All right, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. The bid by a Japanese company to buy US Steel is a big national story with lots of people weighing in on whether that’s appropriate. Cleveland is playing a big role in this story. Lisa, what did US Steel accuse a Cleveland based company of doing to undermine the sale?

Lisa (15:44.43)

Yeah, this is a whole lot of back and forth between the two companies. Pittsburgh based US Steel is accusing Cleveland Cliffs of a misinformation campaign to derail the sale of US Steel to Japan based Nippon Steel. In a published letter this week, they say that Cleveland Cliffs has attacked them since day one after losing the bitty war back in December. And back in July of last year,

Cleveland Cliffs CEO, Lorenco Goncalves offered US Steel $35 a share, but that was rejected later in the year. Cliffs then offered 54 bucks a share, part cash, part stock, that was rejected. And then Nippon offered 55 bucks a share, all cash, which is about $14 .1 billion. So they won the bid. But the disagreement seems to center on whether United Steel workers can veto this sale. Cleveland Cliffs says the union can veto it, US Steel says no.

US Steel also said in their letter that the sale to Cliffs would have regulatory issues because if it happened, that means that they would control up to 100 % of the domestic iron ore market. And Cliffs firing back in a statement of their own saying that this was a doomed attempt to sell to a foreign buyer without union support. And the US Steel Board is realizing this unclosable deal and is blaming us for their terrible decision -making.

chris (17:06.251)

I guess it sounds like just corporate battling. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything inappropriate about what Cleveland Cliffs is trying to do. They still want to buy this company and they’re using everything at their disposal to make that happen. They’ve got politicians now battling saying they don’t want this major steel maker owned by a foreign company, which flies in the face of basic capitalism.

And so Cleveland Cliffs is doing what it can. They still want to own it. This is a competitor for them. So I don’t know. It’s US Steel claiming foul. Yeah, I guess. But this is big business. It’s how it operates, right?

Lisa (17:45.646)

Right. And, you know, we’ve had our politicians, Ohio politicians who have come out, Sherrod Brown being one of them, you know, have come out and I think JD Vance as well. They’ve come out against the sale to Nippon Steel. We know that, you know, foreign companies have dumped cheap steel on the United States for decades. So.

chris (18:03.915)

You know what this tells me is that the campaign by Cleveland Cliffs must be working. They wouldn’t complain so vigorously if the Cliffs campaign wasn’t getting some damage done. So maybe Cliffs still has a chance to get this company. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. It’s official. Cleveland will have a tax increase too actually on the ballot in November for the cast strapped schools. What are we talking about and why is it needed Laura?

laura (18:31.814)

Well, the schools are facing a giant deficit, which we’ve reported before, because in part, all the ARPA money is running out. And when COVID happened and the kids went home and everybody had issues, they spent a lot more time and money and programs trying to teach kids. So they’ve really been working hard these last couple of years because of the pandemic. And they are trying to cut costs, but they need a new tax to make up for.

what they need to operate. It’s not just operating. We’re talking about two taxes. So there is a new tax for operating, basically making the schools run. And then they want to borrow close to $300 million in a bond issue that also is a tax increase to build new buildings and improve existing ones. They’ve been working on building new buildings for years. I think the entire time I’ve been here, I feel like, or ever since they passed, they had like the big program for it. So.

The tax alone is going to cost $300 for every $100 ‚000 of home value. And then they don’t have a number yet for what the bond issue improvements will cost. But say if they’re 10 -year bonds, that’s something like $30 million a year for this $300, something like another $200 a year. So I think ballpark estimate, we’re looking at about $500 a year for $100 ‚000 home.

chris (19:51.147)

Yeah, although we shouldn’t use $100 ‚000 because Cleveland houses aren’t worth that much. I think the median one just for the one tax would be somewhere around 240. I think the school district kind of blew it on this with the lack of transparency. You know, we call these things levies to hide the fact that we’re talking about a tax increase. And they talk in detail about the 8 .4 % one, which would add, I think it’s a $240 to the average Cleveland house.

laura (19:59.174)

Right.

chris (20:18.315)

But then the obfuscation comes with this previously unknown borrowing money to renovate schools. They’re going to have to close a bunch of schools. I don’t know that they’re going to build new ones, but they haven’t done capital upkeep. So they need a bunch of money to upgrade and improve their schools. But to say we don’t know what that’s going to cost, you’re giving your opponents...

weaponry to attack this. And when they went for their last tax increase four years ago, the sleazy downtown landlords did their little secret dark money campaign to try and torpedo it. You got to expect they’re going to do that again. So be transparent. Come out and say, look, we need two tax increases. One to run the schools because we can’t educate the kids without it. One, which would probably cost, you know, another X number of dollars is to renovate the buildings because we haven’t been keeping them up.

But to play this game where they say, yeah, we don’t really know what that’ll cost. It’s not that hard to figure out. You take the total amount of money you want, you divide it by the current valuation. You have a pretty good idea what the cost is. By not giving that out now, you give your detractors weaponry. They’ll come out and they say, they told you this would be $240, but it’s really $400 because of what they didn’t tell you. Just lay it out there. Count on the taxpayers to understand and do the right thing.

laura (21:39.654)

I agree. It is difficult. When people talk about this, they do talk using the word levy, but that is a euphemism for taxes. It’s like when people talking about their home values and the property taxes, and it’s just complicated because that all goes through the county and you get your bill twice a year and you don’t even know. It’s all dependent on how much your house is valued at.

I think people, it just goes over most of their head. What is important here is the school district has a deficit and they can’t keep running the way they are. They’ve already cut their central office staff by 12 .6%. They had a target of 10%. They cut the budgets for staff travel, which I’m not sure what they need to travel for. I mean, what kind of business trips these staff are taking, that raised a question in my mind. They’re rolling back COVID programs.

And they say that there’s going to be more details this summer looking at buildings to see if savings can be found. In the same issue of transparency, I would hope that before they ask for a tax increase, they would tell people this is where we’re cutting, this is where we’re saving money, this is the buildings we plan to close or renovate, because you’re asking for a lot of faith here. And it’s a fairly decent chunk of money. I mean, we just had a story.

yesterday about Akron schools and they’re laying off something like, I mean, eliminating 101, 121 positions that are vacant already and then laying off teachers and stuff because they’ve got the same budget issues. So I think we’re going to be seeing this a lot, at least in urban school districts. And the more they can tell their constituents, the better.

chris (23:24.299)

Yeah, I think though they need to create a commission like the military does to have an objective look at which schools to close. And I should point out, look, our story falls for the levy bond issue language. We’re going to do another story that pretty much says straight out, they’re looking for two tax increases. This is what they would cost. This is how they would work. We’ve got to be transparent if they’re not. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.

Justin Bibb’s strategies last summer led to a remarkable drop in crime after a torrid first part of the year. Courtney, what’s the plan for this summer?

courtney (23:57.28)

Yes, so we got the mayor’s summer safety plan. This is kind of an annual ritual, but this year we learned from mayor bib and safety director Drummond and chief Todd that kind of the big draw of this year’s safety plan is this focusing in on crime hotspots. The city took data collected, you know, about crime over the last three summers, analyzed it and landed on seven different hotspots where they’re really going to focus their enforcement.

And that’s how they’re kind of differentiating it from past year’s plans. It’s worth noting that safety director Drummond declined to say where these hotspots are. So we don’t really know what that part of the plan entails. And Drummond said, you know, in addition to the hotspots, Cleveland police will still be focusing everywhere else in the city too. We’ve got about the same number, probably a few less police officers than we did last summer when everyone was.

kind of upset and concern class will be coming out that helps fill out those to be another low staffin to what we had last year. that Cleveland police ar They think that that will cover things and have a position than they did ma number of folks they have again this year, it’s wor

He’s going to again be partnering with outside agencies, which got a lot of praise last year in addressing last year’s summer crime. So folks like the US Marshal Service, the DEA, and then a big thing is coming to Cleveland thanks to the ATF. It’s the Crime Gun Intelligence Center. And that’s gonna be opening in June, we hear. And we’re told that’s gonna be a big boost for tracking guns used in crimes and cracking down on illegal gun sales.

chris (25:47.755)

Yeah, the key last year was the partnerships. That’s really what changed the dynamic up. And when Cleveland police were trying to go it alone, they weren’t getting anywhere because they were so remarkably understaffed. Once they brought in feds and state, Mike DeWine brought the highway patrol in and they did that series of big event raids. It really changed everything. I mean, we saw remarkable drops. I hope that they have plans for a few more of those this year. Otherwise, it’ll get out of control in a hurry.

courtney (26:15.232)

Yeah, there are plans for, it sounds like at least one or two warrant sweeps. Those partnerships are going to be key. You know, the hotspot analysis and, and local police focusing on those, those areas with heavy crime. I mean, we’ll have to see how that works too. It’s worth noting about a month ago, the safety director told us that this year summer safety plan was written by Vibs former roommate and now, former Cleveland official, Philip McHugh in consultation with police.

So a lot of this year’s plan is based on his work.

chris (26:47.947)

if it doesn’t work, they have a scapegoat. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Here’s an odd one, Lisa. Why did a Cleveland family dollar greeter chase down and shoot a family dollar customer after the customer had checked out and paid for his items?

courtney (26:50.432)

He.

Lisa (27:03.214)

because the customer did not flash his receipt. So Family Dollar employee, 41 year old Alonzo Perkins was charged with felonious assault in that Saturday incident at the Family Dollar store in the Cudell neighborhood in the 10 ‚800 block of Lorraine. So the victim was shopping with his family. He declined a receipt because he paid with a debit card. But as he was leaving, Perkins asked to see that receipt. The guy kept walking.

Perkins grabbed the stroller, because the guy had a baby in a stroller, and the victim punched Perkins in the face and left. So Perkins gets in his car, he follows the guy down West 110th Street, and he got out with a gun, a standoff ensued, and the victim said, are you gonna shoot me? And he started to run, and so Perkins shot him in the ankle. The victim was taken to Metro Health, where he spoke to police. Perkins admitted to police that he did the shooting, he was cooperative, he gave up his weapon.

He said, but he said he warned the victim to put up his hands and get on the ground and says the victim took another swing at him before he fired. So there’s a Monday bond hearing, he’s out on bond, but there was a Monday bond hearing in municipal court. He does not have a felony record. He says he supports a two person family and he says he does not know the victim.

chris (28:19.563)

Yeah, it’s one of those odd ones. They do this at Costco and places where they want to see your receipt, but there’s no law that says you have to show a receipt. And in this case, the guy didn’t even get a receipt because he’s saving the paper. You shouldn’t get shot for that. I mean, that’s a bit way too aggressive and kind of surprising that it could break down that way. We really didn’t hear from Family Dollar about whether or not this is a new policy for how they’re going to treat their customers.

Lisa (28:47.566)

Show that receipt or else.

chris (28:49.259)

Yeah, just that’s one where you read it and think, man, is this what we come to? I guess everybody’s got a gun. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Wednesday episode. Welcome back, Courtney. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thank you for listening. We’ll be back Thursday talking about the news.