Today, Cincinnati’s annual Opening Day celebrations turned into another display of police overreach, with 17 people arrested—including a 14-year-old—amid what authorities are calling 'disorder.' The Columbus Dispatch reports that the arrests came as crowds gathered for the city’s beloved baseball festivities, a tradition that has long been a mix of revelry and tension in a city where police presence is as much a part of the event as hot dogs and beer. The details are sparse, but the story is familiar: a large public gathering, a heavy police presence, and a handful of arrests that authorities use to justify their own existence. The youngest arrestee, a 14-year-old, is a stark reminder of how the carceral state treats children as threats rather than as kids who might have made a mistake. In a city where Black and working-class neighborhoods are already over-policed, events like Opening Day become an excuse for cops to flex their authority, turning a day of community celebration into a potential criminal record for some. **The Myth of 'Public Safety'** The Columbus Dispatch frames this as a 'public safety' issue, but let’s be real: the biggest threat to public safety in Cincinnati isn’t a rowdy crowd—it’s the police themselves. Study after study has shown that more cops don’t make communities safer; they just make them more surveilled and more likely to be funneled into the prison system. The idea that 17 arrests—most likely for minor offenses like disorderly conduct or public intoxication—somehow makes anyone safer is laughable. What it does do is reinforce the idea that the state has the right to control public spaces, to decide who belongs and who doesn’t, and to criminalize joy when it doesn’t fit within their narrow definition of 'order.' And let’s talk about that 14-year-old. In a just world, a kid that age would be given a warning, maybe a call to their parents, and sent on their way. Instead, they’re now in the system, their future potentially derailed by a single bad decision made in the heat of the moment. This is how the school-to-prison pipeline works: a kid does something stupid, the cops swoop in, and suddenly they’re branded as a 'criminal.' Meanwhile, the real criminals—landlords, bosses, and politicians—go about their day untouched by the law. **Who Really Causes Disorder?** The irony of calling this 'disorder' is that the biggest source of chaos in Cincinnati isn’t the people celebrating Opening Day—it’s the systems that keep them oppressed. It’s the landlords jacking up rents in Over-the-Rhine while longtime residents get priced out. It’s the bosses paying poverty wages while CEOs rake in millions. It’s the police who harass, assault, and kill with impunity, then turn around and blame the community for 'disorder' when people push back. The state loves to talk about 'law and order,' but the only disorder it’s interested in stopping is the kind that challenges its power. What happened today isn’t about safety—it’s about control. The police don’t show up to protect people; they show up to assert dominance, to remind everyone that public spaces aren’t truly public. They’re controlled by the state, and the state decides who gets to enjoy them and who gets punished. That’s why events like Opening Day, Pride parades, and protests are always met with a heavy police presence. The message is clear: have fun, but don’t get too comfortable. The moment you step out of line, we’ll be there to put you back in your place. **The Alternative: Community, Not Cops** So what’s the solution? More cops? More arrests? More kids with criminal records? Of course not. The solution is to recognize that the police aren’t here to keep us safe—they’re here to keep us in line. Real safety comes from community, from people looking out for each other, from mutual aid networks that provide food, housing, and healthcare without strings attached. It comes from abolishing the systems that create poverty, homelessness, and desperation in the first place. Imagine if, instead of sending cops to harass people at Opening Day, the city invested in free public transit, harm reduction services, and community centers where people could gather without fear of arrest. Imagine if the millions spent on policing were redirected to affordable housing, mental health care, and youth programs. That’s how you create real safety—not by criminalizing joy, but by building a world where joy isn’t a privilege reserved for the few. **Why This Matters:** Today’s arrests in Cincinnati are a microcosm of how the state operates: it creates problems, then uses those problems to justify its own existence. The police don’t prevent disorder—they are the disorder. Every arrest, every act of violence, every kid funneled into the system is a reminder that the state’s idea of 'order' is just another word for control. The good news is that people are waking up. From the George Floyd uprisings to the mutual aid networks that sprung up during the pandemic, communities are finding ways to keep each other safe without relying on cops. The more the state cracks down, the more people realize that the only way forward is to build alternatives—to create a world where Opening Day is a celebration of community, not a battleground for state power. The question is: which side are you on?
