POLITICO 'They Just Launched a War’ Protesters took to the streets last summer to protest police violence. Lawsuits making headway in Columbus and other cities are showing that the police crackdown helped prove their point. By J. LESTER FEDER Link Copied J. Lester Feder is a freelance journalist and 2020-2021 Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow at the University of Michigan. Tammy Fournier-Alsaada was addressing a crowd in front of Ohio’s domed Capitol building one day last spring when someone whispered in her ear: Police were arresting protesters. Fournier-Alsaada, 59, knew a thing or two about protests. She was an organizer with the People’s Justice Project, which had been fighting police abuse in Columbus since 2015. Fournier-Alsaada also knew the police. She had sat across the table from top officers as a member of a mayor-appointed commission on public safety reform.