Cleveland GOP confab secure despite open gun laws: police

The authorities in Cleveland on Wednesday announced the city would be fully secure for next week's Republican National Convention after they tweaked security operations following the murder of five Dallas police officers.

However, Mayor Frank Jackson and Police Chief Calvin Williams said they would abide by Ohio's open-carry laws that would allow gun-toting members of the public into areas near the convention site where Donald Trump is set to officially become the Republican presidential nominee.

The potentially heated scenario comes as dozens of groups, many with opposing views of Trump, have signaled they will descend on downtown Cleveland, and in some cases may even share park space blocks from the convention.

Ohio's open-carry laws will allow gun-toting members of the public into areas near the convention site where Donald Trump is set to officially become the Republican presidential nominee ©Erich Schlegel (Getty/AFP/File)

"We'll follow the law, and the law of the state of Ohio is that we have open carry," Jackson told reporters at a briefing to highlight the extra security efforts being put into place in the days before the convention begins next Monday.

"I would prefer to not have that scenario, but I can't be bemoaning the fact that that's not the case," he told AFP.

The city has banned a long list of other items from a wide zone around the convention center, including knives, aerosol cans and even tennis balls.

Acknowledging that allowing guns in public spaces near the convention complicates the security scenario, Jackson and Williams insisted the city was prepared.

"We have tactics and policies in place that deal with that," the police chief said without allowing himself to be drawn on specifics.

Williams agreed that "of course" he would prefer the law to forbid firearms near such a high-profile, high-security event.

And he acknowledged that changes in Cleveland security operations were made only in the aftermath of Dallas, where a gunman launched a deadly sniper-type attack that set the nation on edge this month.

"Dallas was a wake-up call for a lot of people," Williams said.

"It causes all of law enforcement -- it causes all of this country -- to kind of step back, take a look at what we're doing and how we're doing it to make sure that we do everything possible to ensure that a situation like that does not occur again."

Six days from the convention's launch, Cleveland was far from a locked-down city.

The inner security zone that will be off-limits next week to all but convention delegates and guests, reporters, and official staff, remained fully accessible to the public Wednesday.

Many of the thousands of police officers Williams said were set to hit the streets had yet to make their presence felt.

But fencing and barriers were being laid out on sidewalks, and Williams said the security ramp-up would begin Thursday and Friday.