Spotlight: U.S. Cleveland police dismiss report of shots fired on convention transport vehicle

Local police Tuesday refuted an earlier report of shots fired at a police vehicle near the Republican National Convention venue where Donald Trump would formally be nominated as the party's presidential nominee.

"There were no shots fired on any of our police transport vehicles right now near the Quicken Loans Arena," said the Cleveland Police's Joint Information Center for the convention in a statement, referring to the main venue for this year's GOP convention.

"We called all transport vehicles. They reported all clear," the statement added.

The statement was a response to a twitter by Reuters, which read that "Shots fired at Cleveland police transport vehicle near site of" GOP convention.

Police here were ramping up security amid fears of violence during the four-day event.

Second day into this year's GOP convention, few violence had so far been reported by local authorities as Cleveland was welcoming an estimated number of 50,000 visitors into the city for the convention.

To ensure security of the event, a 1.7-square-mile (4.4 square kilometers) area in downtown Cleveland was designated as the event zone, where major protests were allowed to be held.

According to the security guideline, a long list of daily items, such as canned food, umbrella, selfie stick, tennis ball are banned within the event zone. However, because Ohio is an open-carry state, guns of any type are allowed in the event zone as long as the purchase was legal.

The leader of the largest police union in Cleveland on Sunday reportedly lobbied Ohio Governor John Kasich to suspend the open-carry laws during the GOP convention, arguing that the practice of allowing people to openly carry firearms would make it "much more difficult" to keep the GOP convention secure.

The request was turned down by Kasich, who insisted that he did not have the authorities to suspend the open-carry laws.

"Open-carry laws are outrageous," Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army Colonel, told Xinhua in an interview here during a protest, adding that the laws put everyone's life at risk.

"Why in the world do people feel like they have to have those guns," said Wright. "It's really because our politicians are scaring everybody to death."

In the wake of high-profile shooting incidents in recent years, much debate in the country was focused on whether more guns could save lives.

Republican politicians argued that civilians who abide by the law need guns for self-protection in case of a shooting incident; while Democrats fought to remove guns from the hands of would-be terrorists and criminals and require background checks for those seeking to purchase firearms.

Early in May, Trump, the new standard-bearer of the Republican Party even proposed to get rid of gun-free zones after winning the endorsement from the powerful lobbyist the National Rifle Association.

With a lax gun control, it would only make it easier for people with either grievance against the government or mental illness to have access to gun, said Wright.

"In that case, having more guns in the street are not being a help," said Wright. "Citizens in most other countries do not have the ability to have guns, because the government doesn't want people to go around killing each other. In America, our politicians don't seem to care." Enditem