Mayor kicks Marines out of Toledo
1-24th Marines were scheduled for weekend urban warfare training in downtown Toledo, when Carty gave them the boot
by Darsha Philips NBC24.com
TOLEDO, OH — Mayor Carty Finkbeiner on Friday ordered some 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th
Marines from Grand Rapids, Michigan, out of Toledo just before the unit
was supposed to start a weekend of urban warfare training downtown.
The
mayor’s spokesperson, Brian Schwartz said, “The mayor asked them to
leave because they frighten people. He did not want them practicing and
drilling in a highly visible area.”
Toledo police said they knew
about the training and had approved the unit’s use of the Madison
Building and the Promenade Park area. The training was scheduled to
start Friday afternoon and last until Sunday. Police said the unit’s
presence would have a minimal impact on the city. Police issued a press
release earlier in the week saying the Marines would be wearing green
camouflage uniforms, operate military vehicles, carry rifles, perform
foot patrols, and fire blank ammunition during the exercise.
Schwartz
said there was a breakdown in communication between police and the
Finkbeiner administration that led to the mayor’s action.
“The
Marines drilled here three times during the Ford administration and
once under the Finkbeiner administration. After the last visit, the
mayor told then police Chief Jack Smith, that he did not want the
marines back. Smith failed to inform the current police administration
of the mayor’s feelings,” Schwartz said.
NBC24 spoke to Jack
Smith who recalled that after the Marines last visit, he and the mayor
had a heated exchange about the training.
“He told me he did not
want them, as he put it, ‘playing war in Toledo,'” Smith recalled. “I
told him, as a former Marine, that if one young Marine’s life is saved
because of training he or she received in Toledo, Ohio, then it was
worth the inconvenience.”
Smith said if the mayor objected, then
he should have been the one to convey those feelings to police. Smith
took his run-in with the mayor as an objection to that last visit and
not future training in Toledo. As a result, the Toledo police went
ahead, granting approval to the 1-24th Marines to conduct
the routine exercise. The police notified members of the Finkbeiner
administration who were not aware that the mayor objected to units
training in Toledo.
When the mayor found out, he sent a member of
his staff to tell Marines they could not conduct urban operations in
Toledo. The unit was notified about 3:30 p.m. after an advance team
arrived in Toledo. Five buses carrying some 200 Marines traveled four
hours from Grand Rapids, only to find out the training had been shot
down.
The unit briefly stopped at a 1-24th Marine base
in Perrysburg Township, then returned to Grand Rapids where training
was expected to be held this weekend. A spokesperson for the Marines
said they were disappointed by the mayor’s decision especially after
the city had been so helpful in the past.
Finkbeiner held a news
conference Saturday night to address the growing controversy.
Finkbeiner says bad planning and communication breakdowns led to his
decision to bar a Marine Corps unit from training in downtown Toledo.
Finkbeiner spent much of the twenty minute news conference explaining
what he didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.
“I don’t know when we were first asked,” he says, “were we asked Tuesday or Wednesday of this week?”