Marine exercise in Toledo Ohio: an attack on democratic rights

The mayor subsequently declared that he had not even been notified of the Marine deployment, and learned of it only through Toledo’s major newspaper, the Blade, on the day of their arrival.

Sergeant Davis agreed and, after a brief stop at a Marine base in nearby Perrysburg, Ohio, he and the rest of the company returned to their Grand Rapids, Michigan, base.

According to Brian Schwartz, the mayor’s spokesperson, Mayor Finkbeiner took this action because armed Marines patrolling city streets “frighten people” (“Mayor to Marines, Leave downtown,” the Blade, 9 February 2008). In 2006, the same Marines battalion trained in downtown Toledo, and the mayor said that at that time he “saw the military with guns drawn emulating warfare, and I observed the expressions of citizens who happened to just be coming down the sidewalk that particular Saturday noon in wonderment, asking, ‘What have I found myself in the middle of?’” The mayor added that he saw looks of “wonderment” and “fear” on the faces of these citizens.