Tag: ohio

Ohio Cops Raided Afroman’s House Looking for a Dungeon Because of a Bizarre Confidential Informant Tip

When sheriff’s deputies in Adams County, Ohio, raided Afroman’s house last year, they were looking for more than just marijuana, which the rapper is famously fond of. The deputies were searching for evidence of outlandish claims from a confidential informant that the house contained a basement dungeon.

The Adams County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) executed a search warrant on Afroman’s house last August on suspicion of drug possession, drug trafficking, and kidnapping. Afroman was not charged with a crime, and the kidnapping angle was never explained. But now, public records obtained by Arthur West, a public records advocate, and provided to Reason shed more light on the raid, which has since led to a bitter legal battle between Afroman and the ACSO deputies.

According to the search warrant affidavit, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office received a tip from a confidential informant that Joseph Foreman, better known as Afroman, was not only trafficking large amounts of marijuana, but he also “has a basement, referred to as ‘the dungeon’ in which he…keeps women locked in, forcing them to urinate and defecate in a bucket as punishment for upsetting or disobeying him.”

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Slavery as punishment for crimes is on the chopping block in Ohio

The Ohio Constitution currently allows slavery when it’s used “for the punishment of crime,” but that may not be the case for long, according to a CNN report.

Rep. Dontavius Jarrells, a Democrat, reportedly teamed up with Republican Rep. Phil Plummer to introduce an amendment to the state constitution that would remove slavery and involuntary servitude entirely from the document. The proposed change was referred to the Constitutional Resolutions Committee on Wednesday, according to CNN.

“Lawmakers are proposing the language to change to, ‘There shall never be slavery in this state; nor involuntary servitude,'” according to the report.

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Ohio State receives first-ever DEA license to grow psychedelic mushrooms for research

Ohio State University is about to grow psychedelic mushrooms.

For scientific research, people.

Ohio State, alongside the mental health and wellness research and development company Inner State Inc., was awarded the first-ever license by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to grow whole psilocybin mushrooms. The mushrooms will be used in the study of mental health treatment capabilities with naturally grown psychedelic mushrooms.

“This license is a major milestone not only for Inner State and Ohio State, but for the entire field of psychedelic research,” Inner State CEO Ashley Walsh said Wednesday in a news release.

The license allows Ohio State and Inner State to cultivate psilocybin mushrooms for research purposes only. All research will be conducted in a federally sanctioned and secured grow house in accordance with strict DEA regulations and guidelines.

“By combining cutting-edge techniques in genomics and metabolomics, we have the opportunity to obtain a high-resolution picture of the chemical diversity of mushrooms that have remained difficult to study for several decades,” according to Ohio State researchers Dr. Jason Slot and Dr. Kou-San Ju.

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8 Cops Who Shot Fleeing Unarmed Man 46 Times on Video, All Get Off Scot Free

Before he was filled with taxpayer-funded bullets in July 2022, Jayland Walker, 25, was a standout wrestler at Buchtel High School, where he graduated in 2015. According to his family, he worked for Amazon, took a job driving for DoorDash, and was set to get married. All of this is over now, however, after multiple officers decided to dump more than a dozen rounds each into Walker’s body after he fled a traffic stop for a simple violation.

Now, despite the fact that these officers executed — in firing squad fashion — an unarmed man on video, they all will go back to work. This week, a grand jury concluded the officers were legally justified in their use of force against Jayland Walker, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

“He reached for his waistband in what several officers described as a cross-draw motion, planted his foot and turned toward the officers while raising his hand,” Yost said. “Only then did the officers fire, believing Mr. Walker was firing again at them.”

“The law allows officers to use deadly force to defend themselves or others against a deadly threat,” he added.

Apparently, ‘belief’ in danger is enough to justify execution by firing squad. One can only hope that police never ‘believe’ you are a danger and treat you in a similar manner.

As we reported at the time, days after he was killed, officials released the body camera footage from Walker’s killing and the chief himself admitted that it was hard to determine what provoked the officers to fire their weapons.

Chief Mylett said in still photos of the footage, it appears Walker was reaching down to his waist but admitted Walker did not have a gun on him when he was killed.

The medical examiner had originally said he had “multiple gunshot wounds,” but Mylett said the medical examiner confirmed more than 60 wounds on Walker’s body.

Laughably, the Fraternal Order of Police in Akron described the shooting as being “consistent with the use of force protocols and officers’ training.”

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Ohio Woman Says Cops Broke Her Wrist for Recording During Traffic Stop

A new lawsuit alleges that an Ohio woman suffered a broken wrist and other injuries after being violently arrested during a traffic stop, in part due to filming the police who pulled her over.

In February 2020, Amanda Mills was pulled over for speeding in Walton Hills, a small town outside Cleveland, Ohio. According to the suit, a police officer, identified in the lawsuit only as “Officer Schmidt” exited his cruiser “irate” and “screaming.” Nervous, Mills began recording the encounter. Schmidt ordered Mills to get out of her vehicle. According to the suit, “Amanda asked ‘why?’ without making any other statement or any sudden movement. At this point, Officer Schmidt realized Amanda was filming him with her cellphone, and he became even more agitated.”

According to the complaint, Schmidt “opened Amanda’s driver-side door, grabbed her by the wrist and arm, and ripped her out of her vehicle.” Another officer helped Schmidt pin Mills to the side of her vehicle. The suit alleges that “Amanda screamed that she was not resisting arrest and continued to cry out in pain.” However, rather than releasing her, officers handcuffed Mills and put her in the back of their cruiser while they searched her vehicle. Eventually, Mills was released from custody after officers could not find illegal substances or outstanding warrants for her arrest. While Mills was initially charged with a first-degree misdemeanor for “failing to comply” with police orders, that charge was eventually dropped.

According to the suit, Mills was left with a broken wrist and other injuries to her arm and breasts. The complaint alleges that the officers’ excessive force violated Mills’ Fourth and 14th Amendment rights. The complaint also says that the Walton Hills Police Department’s practices are the “moving force behind the injuries suffered by Amanda,” and the department is guilty of “failing to adequately train, adequately supervise, as well as failing to investigate and discipline, its police officers when it comes to the excessive use of force.”

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EPA Wants To Move Chemical Waste From Ohio Train Crash To Landfill In Another State

Indiana Republican Governor Eric Holcomb denounced a plan from the Environmental Protection Agency to move chemical waste from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, to a landfill in the western portion of the Hoosier State.

Local and state authorities previously evacuated all residents within one mile of the February 3 derailment and started a controlled burn of industrial chemicals on the vehicle to decrease the risk of an explosion, which could have sent shrapnel throughout the small Ohio town. Vinyl chloride, a carcinogen used to manufacture PVC, was emitted from five train cars in the form of massive plumes of black smoke visible throughout eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

Officials from the EPA revealed on Monday that contaminated waste from the disaster would be transported to an incinerator in Grafton, Ohio, and a landfill in Roachdale, Indiana, according to a report from Fox 59. The former city is 103 miles from East Palestine, while the latter is 402 miles from the small rust belt community.

Holcomb revealed in a Tuesday press release that he disagrees with the decision to transport chemical waste from the disaster site on the eastern border of Ohio to the far western portion of Indiana, effectively crossing the breadth of both midwestern states.

“There has been a lack of communication with me and other Indiana officials about this decision,” Holcomb said. “After learning third-hand that materials may be transported to our state yesterday, I directed my environmental director to reach out to the agency. The materials should go to the nearest facilities, not moved from the far eastern side of Ohio to the far western side of Indiana.”

Holcomb added that he requested to speak with EPA Administrator Michael Regan about the decision and “what precautions will be taken in the transport and disposition of the materials.”

Norfolk Southern, the company at the center of the derailment, warned the EPA that a number of other volatile chemicals beyond vinyl chloride, including ethylene glycol monobutyl ether and ethylhexyl acrylate, were present at the site. The EPA released the full list of substances only after residents were told they could safely return to their homes.

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5 unanswered questions on East Palestine derailment after preliminary NTSB report

The National Transportation Security Board (NTSB) issued its first preliminary report Thursday on the Feb. 3 derailment of a train carrying hazardous chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.

While the report seemingly faults an overheated bearing for the derailment, the NTSB investigation is ongoing, and a number of questions remain.

Here are five remaining questions about the train derailment…

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Neo-Nazi Homeschoolers Defend Their ‘Wholesome’ Pro-Hitler Network

The Ohio couple at the center of the Nazi homeschooling scandal have spoken publicly about their online community of Hitler-loving parents and have defended their actions as “just extra fun” and “so wholesome.”

Predictably, they have also blamed “antifa” for negative coverage of their pro-Hitler homeschooling network.

Katja and Logan Lawrence were unmasked last month as the couple running the Dissident Homeschool network from their home in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, in reports from VICE News and HuffPost, which were based on a report from the anti-fascist research group known as the Anonymous Comrades Collective.

Starting in late 2021, the couple ran a now-deleted Telegram channel with over 2,500 members, and shared their own classroom resources, weaving  Hitler quotes, antisemitic themes, and white supremacist ideologies into their math lessons and homework assignments.

In their first public comments since they were unmasked, the Lawrences staunchly defended their actions.

“The chat was so wholesome,” Katja Lawrence told the Nazi-promoting website Justice Report in an interview published on Monday. “It was mostly homeschooling moms that were lifting each other up when things got difficult.”

In reality the content shared in the channel was deeply racist, including a lesson plan to mark the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. last month that described the assassinated civil rights leader as a “deceitful, dishonest, riot-inciting negro.” 

The Lawrences blasted the mainstream media for “cherry-picking” the neo-Nazi aspects of their lesson plans, claiming that these were “just fun extras” they added to the regular curriculum they taught their four young children.

“We were deliberately made to look very unappealing,” Katja Lawrence said.

Since the news broke, the Lawrences have departed their home and are currently living in a house provided by another local family with close ties to Logan Lawrence, according to residents of Upper Sandusky who have spoken to VICE News on the condition of anonymity over fears of retribution by the family involved.

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Another, Possibly Deadlier, Ohio Eco-Disaster Still Festers Near Train Derailment Site

Some 200 miles from the toxic train derailment site in East Palestine, Ohio, another environmental disaster still festers due to years of neglect by the U.S. government.

This other environmental disaster in Piketon, Ohio, the home of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, also known as PORTS.

In the Cold War era, the U.S. government used PORTS to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. Then, in the 1990s, the site was likely the recipient of polluted uranium from Russia in the 1990s due to a Bill Clinton-era program called “Swords to Ploughshares,” which entailed the United States converting Soviet Union nuclear warheads to uranium that could be used to power U.S. nuclear reactors.

Now, Piketon has a cancer problem—more than 500 cases per 100,000, or about 10% above state average, according to the Ohio Cancer Atlas.

Former PORTS worker Jeff Walburn told Headline USA that the disaster in Piketon could be worse than even what the people in East Palestine are dealing with.

“Here’s the difference: You saw wreckage of a train, you saw an explosion, you saw fire, and you see dead fish. Nuclear material is silent, invisible, and it’s a deadly killer. And the chemicals being transported outside of the plant to the community are just as deadly, but you’re not seeing the explosion or fire,” he said.

As someone who’s tried to hold the companies and federal agencies responsible for poisoning his community accountable for decades, Walburn also has advice for the residents of East Palestine.

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Local Farmer Sounds the Alarm: Why Did East Palestine Launch ‘MyID’ Emergency Service to Surveil Biometrics 1 Week Before Ohio Train Derailment?

A man who lives nine miles away from where the Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in eastern Ohio reached out to The Gateway Pundit to sound the alarm on the bizarre coincidences that continue to pile up surrounding the incident.

Bob Moore, a 70-year-old farmer and longtime resident of East Palestine, initially ignored local news reports urging residents to sign up for “MyID” to receive a new biometric tracking device that provides first responders updates about an individual’s health conditions amid an emergency or “major disaster.”

But the suspicious timing of the government’s distribution of this health-monitoring digital ID, exactly a week before the disaster, warrants answers, Moore told TGP in an exclusive interview.

“It was exactly a week before the derailment happened,” Moore said. “The people were asked to go to the local fire department in downtown East Palestine to get that MyID.

“They began monitoring your physical activity, your heart rate, your respiration, anything you might be exposed to. I see this as the kind of censor you would put on an astronaut or on an athlete that you wanted to track to see how he’d react to stress or being winded, or in this instance chemical exposure. It’s a monitoring device.”

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