The Black Panther Movement held an armed rally in front of the Hamilton County Courthouse in Cincinnati Monday afternoon to support Rodney Hinton Jr.

Hinton faces the death penalty for allegedly striking Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Henderson with his car, killing him, after viewing bodycam footage of his own son Ryan Hinton being killed by a different police officer.

“They might wanna kill Rodney for avenging his son. We say no sir!” said Mmoja Ajabu, Executive Director of Pan-African Affairs for the Black Panther Movement. “You do that, and other things are gonna happen!”

“No justice! No peace!” the crowd chanted.

“Say his name! Rodney Hinton! And we’re not going to just say his name, we’re going to protect his body.”

Rally coincides with police week kickoff

Apparently by coincidence, the rally at the Hamilton County Courthouse took place just blocks away from a kickoff event for National Police Week.

On Monday morning, police and government figures such as Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Karma Singh Pureval and Police Chief Teresa A. Theetge spoke out in a service memorializing all fallen police officers, but particularly the recent death of Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Henderson.

“We are here to support Rodney Hinton,” Ajabu said to a media gaggle following the rally. “They are trying to say Rodney’s crazy. He ain’t crazy.”

“You can get shot down and the police can get away with it. That may be legal, but it ain’t right.”

Livestream:

“We basically support the Black Panther Party with two missions that I cannot go over right now. During peacetime we support the security details like today,” described a member of the Black Panther Party Archery Corps armed with a crossbow.

On why crossbows, he explains: “One, you don’t need a license. Two, you don’t need to register, and three, even a brother or a sister with felony conviction can own a crossbow!”

Town Hall Meeting:

“We want to cause an epidemic towards the thinking that was expressed by Rodney Hinton to be our thinking!”

Mmoja Ajabu of the Black Panther Movement hosted a town hall Monday night following the rally to support Rodney Hinton Jr, who faces the death penalty for allegedly killing a police officer with his car as retaliation for the police killing of his son.

“Most of us think like this especially in this room, but how many of us have the courage to carry it out?” Ajabu asked.

“When we start seeing each other as brother and sister, then if it’s your child, it’s mine too.”

“Rodney has shown us, and we’re gonna support him. Now they’re talking about killing him,” Ajabu said.

“That ain’t gonna happen without there being a price. But see, we don’t want to riot. We want to have a military strategy that we bring them to their knees.”

“If you ain’t ready for the killing, then you’re in the wrong place.”

He says a war has already broken out, but not escalated to a point of understanding it that way. “The key of the lives it’ll cost is that it be theirs.”

“Who are y’all?” Ajabu asked a group of mostly white kids at the Black Panther Movement town hall, prompting laughs.

One explained that they’re Democratic Socialists from University of Cincinnati.

“Even though people we’re disgusted with look like them, they more than likely don’t act like them,” Ajabu said of the white kids. “That don’t mean that we keep our eyes closed.”

A white guy asked for more details on the Black Panther Movement’s future plans.

“What we’re gonna do? That ain’t none of your business,” he was told.

“There’s a role you can play!” Mmoja Ajabu told him. He then suggested that the young man infiltrate the KKK for them.

“Put your robes on! White power!” Ajabu joked. “Come back and tell us what they said.”

As Executive Director of Pan-African Affairs for the Black Panther Movement, Mmoja Ajabu advocated a Black Nationalist position about reconnecting with the African continent.

One town hall attendee pushed back saying youth “Don’t know Africa, we know America.”

“We’re actually American, like original Americans.”

Ajabu pushed back: “F*** America!” he said to cheers and claps.

Another man in the camp that views African Americans as Indigenous to America clarified that despite the difference of opinion: “That don’t mean that I won’t fight.”

“If you shoot straight, and you shoot regular, and you’re shooting at the people we’re shooting at, you’re alright with us,” Ajabu responded. “Amen!”

One attendee asked about IDing the officer who shot Rodney Hinton’s son. “We take the position that Rodney took,” Ajabu replied. “Any of them will do.”

“We want it to stop. I bet if they come up missing, they’ll go ‘it wasn’t me, it was him.’ They’re gonna tell on him!”

“This ain’t for everybody” he said, as some of the Democratic Socialist group left. “Let’s weed them out!”

“It looks like I ran out some of those white folks!” he joked.

“No, they have a meeting,” another replied.