Protesters clash with Chicago police after grand jury decisions in police-involved deaths in December 2014. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
For security reasons, Cleveland spokesman Dan Williams said he can’t get into the details of what the city has bought or borrowed, and if all goes well during the convention, we will likely never see much of it. The Cleveland police did not respond to a request for comment. They will oversee security in much of the “event zone” where rallies, marches and other protests are allowed to take place.
The thing about the LRAD, and other devices like it, is that more and more cities have them. And things haven’t always gone smoothly — which is what has activists, civil liberties groups and others in Cleveland concerned.
Much like the federal programs that many Americans only learned of after they saw images of police in tank-like vehicles trying to quell protests and riots in Ferguson, Mo., those $50 million national special security event grants are changing the way America’s cities are policed. They have supplied the funds for cities across the country to obtain devices that some have described as dangerous — or, at the very least, unsuitable for urban settings.
