CLEVELAND — Cleveland’s Maosha Vales is a survivor of a vicious 2008 knife attack and shared her safety concerns after Ohio passed legislation blocking city restrictions on the size and type of knives can be concealed.
Vales told News 5 that she was concerned that banning restrictions on knives, brass knuckles, cestus, billy clubs, blackjacks, sandbags, switchblades, spring-loaded knives and more statewide only further promotes street violence. She hopes the city of Cleveland prevails by reinstating its knife law limiting blade length to no more than 2.5 inches.
“It’s just one more reason for someone to hurt another person,” Vales said. “I came in to try and break up a fight because I just got off work so I really didn’t know what was going on.”
“I grabbed the knife but was unsuccessful and was stabbed over 15 times. Imagine you have knives that are bigger and bigger people are carrying, the knife that was so big stabbed me. Imagine if the knife was that big, and so if she had a bigger knife, I don’t know what I would have looked like.
Maosha Valleys
Judy Martin, director of survivors, tragedy victims, told News 5 that 2,115 people and children under the age of 25 have lost their lives to street violence in Cuyahoga County since 1990. She agrees that blocking city restrictions in Ohio on knives could pave the way for more victims.
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“So what are we going to do, keep burying our sons and daughters, keep burying our fathers and mothers,” Martin said. “How many children do we have to lose.”
Cleveland City Councilman Michael Polensek told News 5 that he believes legislation Gov. Mike DeWine signed on June 14 blocking the city’s knife restriction laws puts law enforcement and security forces in danger.
“In this legislation they can carry a sword, they can carry a sword, a concealed sword, I mean, it’s crazy,” Polensek said. “Can you understand why people don’t want to be in law enforcement when you have to worry every time you get out of the car to interact with someone, what kind of weapon is he carrying , what kind of knife will he conceal.
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Cleveland Police Chief Wayne Drummond agreed that Ohio blocking the city’s knife restrictions would put officers at higher risk.
“People now have the ability to carry weapons without a license or training, and now people have the ability to carry all kinds of weapons, so to speak, dangerous items and so on,” Drummond said. “I hope Columbus will think before they make these kinds of changes to laws that affect urban areas.
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But Dean Rieck, executive director of the Buckeye Firearms Association and other supporters of the Ohio law, believes removing restrictions on knives does not pose an increased safety risk and better empowers law-abiding citizens to conceal the carrying of a knife to protect themselves without increased risk of being unfairly accused of having broken the law.
“It was a very uncontroversial bill, no opponents testified against it,” Rieck said. “It’s about clarifying the law so people don’t get in trouble.”
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“The goal is to make sure that we don’t have a few thousand different cities or towns coming up with their own rules. Because when we get to the point where we measure the length of the knife, or what type of knife it’s about, how it was made, it’s confusing. So the answer is to not have a bunch of different laws and have one cohesive set of laws.
“There are always people predicting that something bad is going to happen after the law is passed, and it never happens. These laws are carefully written and I think most people are responsible. All we’re trying to do is make sure that people can exercise their rights, understand the laws and that law-abiding people won’t get in trouble for breaking a rule they don’t understand if they don’t commit a crime or do anything wrong.
Still, Cleveland Public Safety Director Karrie Howard is exploring legal options the city may have to reinstate knife restrictions and make them enforceable within city limits.
“Our legal department is looking into the matter, we need guidance from the legal department to see what we can do and what our options are,” Howard said. “It’s worrying when you have more guns on the street, we don’t need more guns on the street, we’ve seen some violent summers.
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“This is not a responsible act, keeping in mind our citizens, our security forces, police officers, firefighters and emergency medical service professionals, we do not need more weapons on the street in any form.”
Meanwhile, Vales hopes knife restrictions will be reinstated and told News 5 that the 2008 knife attack that nearly cost him his life changed his perspective on everything.
“After being stabbed multiple times I was thinking about my kids, I couldn’t see my kids and I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t breathe,” Vales said. “With this law, you’re just giving people permission to attack people.