Is the new COINTELPRO underway in Columbus?
March 24, 2003 Open harassment by Columbus Police, vigilantes and possibly federal agents against the peace movement began Saturday, March 15, 2003. More than 400 peace activists gathered in Blackburn Park at 18th and Main Streets in the heart of the black community. Bill Moss, a prominent African American Columbus School Board member and former Soldier of the Year in Ohio spoke out against the illegality of the war with Iraq; Barry Edney, local barber, founder of the Ordinary Peoples Movement and a Vietnam-era vet also spoke. Despite the involvement of these well-known black activists within the peace coalition, the Columbus Free Press learned that local precinct officers fanned out through the community, including those assigned to the gang squad, to warn black youth that a large group of white troublemakers was coming into their neighborhood to cause disruption. The Columbus Police had been charged by the Clinton administrations Department of Justice with a pattern and practice of v
