CLEVELAND — As tensions arose in Cleveland’s newly constructed Public Square Tuesday during the Republican National Convention, Salvation Army Major Larry Shade prayed nothing chaotic would happen.
“I’m just praying and hoping nothing happens,” the Ashland man said Tuesday evening.
Most of the groundwork done for the Republican National Convention by law enforcement agencies and the military was confidential. But the Salvation Army’s plan was an open book.
Shade said his crew at Cleveland’s Salvation Army Administrative Offices started training 72 other Salvation Army volunteers for the RNC two weeks before. Their main prerogative: serving the RNC’s first responders, he said.
In other words, if something bad went down on Public Square, he and his crew would haul water, Gatorade and first-aid kits to the police officers responding.
Around 4 p.m., hours before Donald Trump officially became the Republican presidential nominee, Shade was ready for the worst. So were the police.
Several groups, both Donald Trump supporters and anti-Trump activists, anti-police brutality groups, anarchists and Westboro Baptist Church goers squared off in Public Square, resulting in a mass escort by the police. Despite the intensity, no arrests were made.
Shade said his crew worked with Cleveland’s commissioner of EMS services, Nicole Carlton, who assigned him four locations throughout downtown. All locations were manned by armed police officers and state highway troopers from around the country.
East 14th and Sumner Avenue
East 21st and Payne Avenue
1701 Lakeside
Ontario Avenue and Superior Avenue
Each day during the RNC, Shade and his team traveled to each location from noon to midnight. Shade also worked with four mobile units set up outside of Cleveland in Salem, Warren, Dover and Akron.
On Monday, he and the team served water and Gatorade to around 150 to 200 officers, Shade said. On Tuesday those numbers doubled.
“They’ve been long days,” Shade said, adding the drive from his home in Ashland is 70 minutes. “We expected the week would get busier as it goes on.”
But it’s a labor of love, he said.
“I know I am changing people’s lives. Anything that I do for another person is making a difference — even just being there to offer a good listening ear,” he said.
Shade has offered a listening ear, a strong shoulder and a calm demeanor before — he and his wife have both served on the Salvation Army for 38 years. In that time they have worked during some of the country’s greatest catastrophes and disasters.
“We were both at 911,” he said. “We were at hurricanes.”
