Ohio has sent 100 members of its National Guard to Washington, D.C., after a direct request from Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, as the state felt it could spare that many to help meet the capital's request for extra troops, Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday.
"We have National Guard now in Columbus, National Guard in Cleveland, and we were happy to do this," the Republican governor said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." DeWine also stressed that the nature of the protests in those cities and in Cincinnati have been different from protests in cities such as New York.
"We're working very closely with our mayors and our local chiefs of police trying to give them the help from our National Guard where they request it as well as our Ohio State Highway Patrol, but there is a difference," DeWine said. "The vast majority of protesters want to protest. They want to make a point. They want to talk about justice, and we welcome that."
There has been a "hijacking" however, of the "very legitimate messages" offered by protesters by "people who want to wreak havoc and violence, as well as the looters, and so it's a small group of people, but they are there and they have caused some real problems," the governor said.
However, matters have remained "relatively calm," and Columbus and Cleveland both have the National Guard there to back up the police, DeWine added.
"It has been good, and by and large, I think the police have been doing a good job, but yes, there's a very big difference between the protester who wants to say, 'Look, we've got a problem here and I want to talk about it,' that we welcome, and these people who really just kind of want to tear everything down."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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