It’s legal to openly carry guns in Ohio, individually or as a group. But what about aiming them at bystanders?

By Marshall Weiss, The Observer

Springfield Chief of Police Allison Elliott says her department was prepared for whatever might come its way on a hectic Saturday, Aug. 10.

“This is my community. I was born and raised here. I’m very passionate about it,” Elliott says.

Bernie Moreno, Ohio’s Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, was scheduled to give a stump speech that morning in the parking lot of Mad River Armory and Range.

He would talk about gun rights and how the influx of Haitian immigrants to Springfield under Temporary Protected Status has put “insane” strains on the city’s infrastructure.

Moreno’s staffers had asked for extra-duty police officers to be present at his rally, Elliott says. They were concerned counterprotesters might show up.

That afternoon, from 1 to 5 p.m., families would head to the Summer Sky Festival put on by the Clark County Historical Society at its Heritage Center downtown.

Springfield Kiwanis was hosting the second day of its Springfield Jazz & Blues Fest from 2:30 p.m. into the evening at Commons Park Plaza and Mother Stewart’s Plaza in downtown’s core block area. The weather was perfect.

With all the negative national media attention over the weeks before focused on Springfield’s soaring Haitian population — much of it from Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s stump speech references — Aug. 10 looked like a day for people there to take a breath. To just have fun.

And then a dozen members of the Blood Tribe hate group showed up.

“They went down to our core block area while those large events were going on,” Elliott says. “They marched up to our City Hall area. There were some that were identified as holding rifles and they were obviously wearing masks.” Some of them, she says, appeared to carry sidearms.

Ohio is an open carry state. The group’s name, Blood Tribe, was emblazoned on the back of their red shirts. They carried two flags with swastikas, the symbol of Nazi Germany.

The police chief says a dozen Blood Tribe members showed up about 4:35 p.m., walked as a group in the core block area for about 85 minutes, and “were heading back out of the core block of the city” around 6 p.m.

Though The Observer asked Elliott repeatedly, she declined to say whether her department had any prior knowledge that members of Blood Tribe planned to show up and march.

“We didn’t get an application for a permit for a rally or a parade or anything like that,” Elliott says. “Obviously, exercising your First Amendment right just to walk up the street and march up the street, you do not have to have a permit here in Springfield for that. Once they arrived to the city, we obviously had our plans in place from our increased staffing and following our action plans on how we handle situations like that that do arise.”

Chelsea Shirk Weber says she was keenly aware of the police presence in Springfield that day. She and her husband brought their 4-year-old daughter downtown to take in the Summer Sky Festival and Jazz & Blues Fest.

“Being a mom, the first thing I look at is, OK, I take a picture of my kid and the clothes she’s wearing that day, I check to see where are the exits, the safety, how many police officers are there,” Weber, also a Springfield native, says.

“At the Summer Sky Festival, that we went to first, we only saw two officers for the entire event,” Weber says. “But at Jazz Fest, I said to my husband, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of cops around here.’ They were paired up, a lot of them walking around.”

Weber says she’s known Elliott her entire life. “She’s going to do big things for Springfield,” she says of the chief. “She has been the best thing for Springfield since she took over.”

At 5 p.m., the Webers were walking back to their car, which they had parked on High Street half a block from City Hall.

“My husband and I, we heard this loud noise and shouting,” Weber says. “We were like, ‘What the hell? What’s going on?'”

Her husband said, “Get to the car now.”

“Then I saw the group of them. Their red shirts, their masks, and the Nazi flag. And we got in the car.”

Their daughter asked what was going on.

“Nothing. We’re just trying to get home.”

Who they are
According to the Anti-Defamation League, Blood Tribe is a neo-Nazi group with semi-autonomous chapters in the United States and Canada. It was formed online in 2021 and started showing up at anti-LGBTQ+ events last year.

It champions “hard-line White supremacist views and openly directs its vitriol at Jews, ‘non-Whites’ and the LGBTQ+ community.”

Approximately two dozen Blood Tribe members marched through downtown Nashville, Tenn. on Saturday, Feb. 17, calling it a celebration of “the Great White South.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that Blood Tribe’s founder, Christopher Alan Pohlhaus, has led members of the hate group on at least five other rallies: in Wadsworth, Ohio, March 11, 2023; in Columbus, Ohio, April 29, 2023; in Toledo, Ohio, July 15, 2023; in Orlando, Fla., Sept. 2, 2023; and in Madison, Wisc., Nov. 18, 2023.

The Columbus Dispatch reported Sept. 11, 2023 that Blood Tribe claimed it had started an Ohio chapter.

Elliott declined to share how closely her officers surveilled the Blood Tribe group during their march in Springfield.

“Obviously, this group is exercising their First Amendment, Second Amendment rights, but we also understand the potential for dangerous situations to occur, of course, in any potential for opposition at any event like that.

“We had more officers throughout the area, just monitoring and then also monitoring the group to ensure that while they’re going to exercise their First and Second Amendment rights, we also have an obligation and duty to protect the public and ensure no criminal activity is occurring and keeping people safe and trying to prevent any sort of negative interaction or significant event.”

The chief says some people downtown made comments back as they drove past the Blood Tribe marchers.

“We did have some reports that they (Blood Tribe) were making statements initially about our Haitian community members,” Elliott says. “That was obviously second-hand information.”

The chief, who has since been in contact with the FBI, says her officers did not observe Blood Tribe members breaking any laws Aug. 10 in Springfield.

“But I will tell you though, we do encourage the public, especially in any event — we’re human too, and there may be some things that we missed — at any sort of operation or event, we do encourage the public if you see something, say something.”

‘They have four assault rifles pointed at the car’
When Weber’s husband pulled their car out from its spot on High Street, they got stuck in traffic. Two cars were ahead of them at the red light at High and Fountain Avenue.

That’s when the Blood Tribe marchers started crossing the street in front of them.

“While they were in the crossing, it was the guy in the suit who wasn’t wearing a mask — he was leading them — and then there were four people standing on the street pointing their guns, saying, ‘Go the f— back to Africa,'” Weber says. “That’s what they were shouting. Pointing the guns at the cars. At my car.”

Her husband drove through the red light to get them to safety.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do,” Weber says of the marchers. “They have four assault rifles pointed at the car. So we sped off and left.”

Weber says she didn’t see any police nearby when the neo-Nazis aimed their rifles at her family.

“I did not see a single police officer interact with them or stop or watch them. The only person that was trying to stop them was a teenager boy on a skateboard. Because he followed them around.”

She and her husband didn’t contact the police. “We wanted to get out and head home.”

Their daughter, Weber says, is traumatized.

“My daughter is asking, ‘Why are there bad men with masks on, pointing guns at the car saying bad words?’ Now she’s getting into, ‘What happens if there’s a tornado? What happens if the house catches on fire?’ All these bad situations because of the Nazis and them pointing their guns at my car.”

Weber was one of two people that day to post photos of the Blood Tribe marchers in Springfield on social media.

“I posted it on the bulletins in Springfield and Clark County Facebook pages,” she says.

That photo is at the top of this story.

“Well, my post blew up. Hundreds of people commented on it.”

Weber wishes she had screenshot those posts. She says they were removed. She adds that people were commenting on it in favor of the hate group. Others said the photo she posted wasn’t real.

“I got hundreds of comments. Mostly hate-filled. And then after they removed my post, about five minutes later, the City of Springfield government posted.”

The post, at City of Springfield, Ohio – Government Facebook page read:

We want to inform you that a hate group from outside of our community made an appearance in the downtown core block today. Their presence is deeply concerning, and our public safety services took the necessary steps to ensure the safety and well-being of everyone in our community was maintained.

Mayor Rob Rue commented on the situation stating, “There was an attempt to disrupt our community by an outside hate group. Nothing happened, except they expressed their First Amendment rights. Our Police Division was aware and in control the entire time.”

We stand united against hate and discrimination and remain committed to upholding the values of respect and inclusivity within our community. Let’s continue to support one another and uphold these values that define our community.

Thank you.

“It was just completely disappointing that the government said, ‘Oh, they’re just exercising their First Amendment right and they did no harm.’ Tell that to my 4-year-old, who is completely traumatized. I’m 37 and I was scared s—less. How do you explain it to a 4-year-old?”

The Observer provided Police Chief Elliott with a transcript of Weber’s interview. Despite repeated attempts to reach out to Elliott for a follow-up interview, she declined to comment.

To read the complete September 2024 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.