The head of Cleveland’s largest police union is calling on Ohio Gov. John Kasich to temporarily restrict the state’s open carry gun laws during this week’s Republican National Convention following Sunday’s shooting in Louisiana that killed three officers and wounded at least three others.

“We are sending a letter to Gov. Kasich requesting assistance from him. He could very easily do some kind of executive order or something — I don’t care if it’s constitutional or not at this point,” Stephen Loomis, president of Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, told CNN. “They can fight about it after the RNC or they can lift it after the RNC, but I want him to absolutely outlaw open-carry in Cuyahoga County until this RNC is over.”

State law in Ohio allows for licensed firearm owners to wear their weapons in public. With the exception of a small “secure zone” inside and around the Quicken Loans Arena, residents, delegates and protesters are legally permitted to walk around the city — including within its 1.7 square mile regulated “event zone” — with any firearm not explicitly banned by the state.

Kasich, responding to the request, said: “Ohio governors do not have the power to arbitrarily suspend federal and state constitutional rights or state laws as suggested.”

“The bonds between our communities and police must be reset and rebuilt — as we’re doing in Ohio — so our communities and officers can both be safe. Everyone has an important role to play in that renewal,” he said.

Earlier, he released a video offering his condolences in the wake of the Baton Rouge attack.

Dozens gathered Saturday night at the spot where 18-year-oldBrandon Jones was killed by a Cleveland police officer to demand justice and pay their respects.

They held hands and prayed underneath the sign for Parkwood Grocery, which proudly declares that it’s been black owned for more than 30 years. As the vigil began, they formed a circle around Jones’ immediate family and many cried.

Why does this keep happening? They asked.

They expressed frustration over the number of unarmed black men killed by police, but also urged young black men not to respond with violence and to reject a life of crime.

Jones broke into the Parkwood store by prying open the front door with a crowbar and then tried to make off with cigarettes and a stack of Canadian coins. Two officers confronted him on the sidewalk about 2:15 a.m. and tried to arrest him. One of them fired a shot during a struggle, which hit Jones in the chest.

The Cleveland Police Use of Deadly Force Investigation Team and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office are investigating. The two officers were placed on a three-day administrative leave.

Participants in Wednesday’s vigil expressed anger about Jones’ death and the death of other black men and women at the hands of Cleveland police.

Some carried pictures of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer Nov. 22, and Tanisha Anderson, a mentally ill woman who died after police forced her to the ground Nov. 13.

Jones’ 17-year-old sister Angie Jones said the officer who shot her brother needs to go to jail.

“There was two of them and there was one of him,” she said. “They could have done anything, but they decided to shoot him.”

A man who identified himself only as “James,” raised his middle finger toward a TV camera and made an obscene comment about the police.

Black people matter just as much as everyone else, James said. “We’ve got families and children just like everybody.”

Bill Swain, who described himself as a “revolutionary,” shouted the same obscene comment through a microphone before the vigil, but Judy Martin, member of the advocacy group Black on Black Crime, quickly waded through a crowd of people and convinced him to stop.

Members of Brandon’s family were given the chance to speak. His mother, Tanya Pearl, shook her head as tears streamed down her face, indicating that it was still too soon.

“I’m upset because my grandson was killed on the ground,” Brandon’s grandmother Calthonia Pearl said. “They wrestled him to the ground. They could have tazed him.”

The police who killed Jones, Tamir Rice and Tanisha Anderson are paid through Cleveland tax dollars, Pearl said. “We’re paying them to kill us.”

She then asked young people in the crowd to reject a life of crime, stick together and intervene if they see their friends going down the wrong path.

Martin echoed that sentiment.

“If you see your friend going toward an argument, talk to them, hug them, bring them back,” she said.

Loretta Ferguson, a member of the activist group Peace Alliance, urged the young men in the crowd not to offer violence as a solution in the wake of Jones’ death.

“She doesn’t need that kind of negativity right now,” Ferguson said with her hand on Tanya Pearl’s shoulder.

Ferguson asked the young people in the crowd to join activist groups or organize their own to make politicians understand that deaths at the hands of police are unacceptable

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson restated on Friday that arbitrators who reject punishments meted out by police leaders have undermined the city’s efforts to get rid of officers who do bad things.

According to a Department of Justice report on the practices of Cleveland PD, “Cleveland police lack accountability, are inadequately trained and too often resort to unnecessary force.”

The statements by the mayor came at a time when police brutality appears to be a wide-spread practice, especially in the Cleveland area and justice Department investigators found a widespread pattern of civil rights abuses in how police use force.

To outside observers, the Cleveland mayor seems to be looking for excuses and trying to find reasons for implementing actual changes, but he claims that he has made significant changes in how the department trains and disciplines officers, however has complained about the arbitration process, which he says “ties the city’s hands.”

“There are things outside of the Division of Police that need to be addressed,” the mayor said Friday at a news conference where he attempted to give answers about the city’s ongoing negotiations with the U.S. Justice Department over use-of-force practices. “I’m trying to deal with police. I don’t have authority over the arbitrators.”

According to the established process, punished officers are allowed to have their suspension or dismissal go before an impartial mediator. The arbitration process is defined in detail in the collective bargaining agreement between the city and the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association. The arbitrator has the authority to uphold or overrule the department’s punishment.

Last year the Northeast Ohio Media Group filed a Public Records Request for documents from arbitration cases in December after the release of the Justice Department’s report, which illustrated a police culture where officers used deadly force as a first resort, mishandled the mentally ill and underreported these abuses to supervisors.

The city of Cleveland provided twenty cases where officers were suspended or fired. In many of these cases, the official arbitrator ruled against the city and re-hired the dismissed officers, who were often engaged in serious violations of department rules or in violation of Constitutional rights.

Cleveland.com is highlighting five cases showing a wide pattern of civil rights abuses by Cleveland police. In four of the  five cases, the arbitrator overruled the city. They also show one case that is an example of what it takes to stay fired.

Case 1: An officer is fired from the department after a criminal conviction related to stabbing her boyfriend.

Case 2: Two officers are suspended after kicking back in a squad car in an Asiatown parking lot during the storm born out of the remnants of Hurricane Sandy.

Case 3: An officer tried to develop intimate relationships with several female crime victims. He sent sexual text messages to women. 

Case 4: A 911 dispatcher refused to send a patrol officer to check on a report of a man beaten, stuffed into a truck and killed.

Case 5: A police dispatcher used his personal cellphone and abandoned his post after receiving a call about a possible school shooting.