Cleveland Bagel Company owners say they’ve been harassed since sharing a post about a police reform rally on the Fourth of July

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - A Cleveland bagel shop is facing backlash after they shared a post about a rally on the Fourth of July focused on police reform.

Geoffry Hardman is the co-founder of Cleveland Bagel Company. Two days ago, he shared a flier for the protest on his business’s Instagram story. On the post was the hashtag #defundclecpd.

“That seemed to catch the ire of a blog and it just started piling on,” explained Hardman. “So, when I posted today all the people from the previous one just started hating on us. We stopped taking phone calls today just because so many people were kind of doing harassing language, they were trying to place false orders and then we’d ask for a credit card and they’d hang up or tell something about the police.”

Hardman said they support the Black Lives Matter movement and the police department.

“Support the police and to support the reform they’re not mutually exclusive. You can do both. I mean at our shops for years police officers’ coffee free like we embrace them we like them coming in. I think if you would talk to some police officers, they’d say the same like, ‘Yeah, there could be some reform that might make my job easier. I might get better training. I might get better pay.’ Reform doesn’t have to mean we’re taking away the police.”... (Read more)

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