Greater Cleveland activists to host the 5th Anniversary of the Cleveland Police 137 Shots Killings of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell rally and vigil on November 29 and on December 5 will picket against police misconduct in greater Cleveland at 11 am

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-Greater Cleveland community activists, led by the Committee for Social Justice, Black on Black Crime Inc, Imperial Women Coalition and the Inner City Republican Movement, will host the 5th Anniversary of the Cleveland Police 137 Shots Killings of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell rally and vigil at 5 pm on Wednesday, Nov 29 in the parking lot of Heritage Middle School in East Cleveland where the two unarmed Blacks were gunned down five years ago  by 13 non-Back Cleveland cops slinging 137 bullets. (Contacts for the event are activists Alfred Porter Jr of Black on Black Crime Inc at (216) 804-7462 and Kathy Wray Coleman at (216) 659-0473). Family members of the shooting victims are expected to attend, organizers said.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE FACEBOOK PAGE OF THE 5TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 137 SHOTS RALLY AND VIGIL

The event marks the day, on Nov 29, 2012, that the 13 Cleveland cops crossed jurisdictional lines via a car chase that began in downtown Cleveland and ended in neighboring East Cleveland and did a Bonnie and Clyde -type shooting at the stationary car that had been driven my Russell, 43, and where Williams, 30, was a passenger.

Both were homeless, and had substance abuse problems, and they had family members who cared about them.

The city settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $3 million to be split between the parties and their attorneys. .

Neither was wanted by the law and none of the cops at issue spent a day in jail, only one of them getting fired to the dismay of the Black community and after the firings of five other police officers were reversed by an arbitrator.

At 11 am on Tuesday, Dec 5 activists will  hold a Stop Police Misconduct in Greater Cleveland rally on the steps of the Justice Center on Lakeside Avenue in downtown Cleveland to address police misconduct in communities throughout Cuyahoga County, including Cleveland, Euclid, University Heights, Garfield Heights, Bedford Heights, Shaker Heights, Berea, Lyndhurst, Middleburg Heights and Beachwood.

The Dec 5 rally will focus on abuse and malfeasance against Blacks in Garfield Heights and elsewhere in greater Cleveland, the harassment of activist Kathy Wray Coleman by University Hts police and corrupt judges and others, the police killing in Euclid of 23-year-old Luke Stewart and police beatings of Richard Hubbard and activist Damian Parker in the same city.

The Dec 5 rally will also address an uncosntitutional and racist grand jury process and malicious prosecutions and mass incarceration of the Black community.

"We will deal with all of these issues," said Art McKoy, the founder of Black on Black Crime Inc and a longtime greater Cleveland community activist.

Activist Kathy Wray Coleman, a key organizer of both events who leads the Imperial Women Coalition and edits ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspapers, said she is particularly concerned that police gunned down Malissa Williams in her prime and that "police abuse and other malfeasance against innocent Black people is escalating across Cuyahoga County."

Other participating activists' groups include Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, RefuseFacism.Org and the People's Forum.

Five Cleveland police officers involved in the deadly shooting of  Williams and Russell who were fired last year by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who is Black and was reelected to a fourth term last month, were reinstated to their jobs last month  after a White arbitrator in June, ordered their reinstatements and no administrative appeal was taken to the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas by the city to seek to vacate or overturn the arbitrator's controversial ruling.

A sixth police officer, Michael Brelo, who was also fired, will not be reinstated, the arbitrator ruled.

In addition to Brelo, the other police officers fired of the 13 non-Black cops that gunned down Williams and Russell were Det. Erin O'Donnell,  officers Brian Sabolik, Wilfredo Diaz and Michael Farley, and Det. Chris Ereg.

Racial unrest continues to mount behind the killings by police, two of many in the largely Black major American city of some 385,000 people, the second most segregated city in the nation behind Boston.

Some supervisors of the cops warned the aggressive shooters to stand down, but to no avail.

Brelo was exceptionally callus and shot 49 of the 137 bullets into the car Russell had been driving.

Arbitrator William Heekin, who was chosen by the city and the police union from a list of arbitrators from the American Arbitration Association, also upheld the 21-day suspensions for officers Scott Sistek, Cynthia Moore, Randy Patrick, Paul Box and Det. William Salupo, as well as a 22-day suspension for Det. Michael Rinkus.

Activists say the arbitration process is a sham to the detriment of the Black community and others, particularly those subjected to excessive force and other police misconduct.

"The city terminated six of those officers and gave lengthy suspensions to the other six," said Mayor Jackson. "We are pleased that the arbitrator confirmed the severity of the violations committed by the officers and that he upheld the termination of Officer Brelo and that he upheld the lengthy suspensions for the six officers whom the city had not terminated."

Overturning an arbitration award in Ohio rarely occurs, regardless of the merits of the case. But it does occur.

The car chase that resulted in the unprecedented deaths of two innocent Black people culminated in some 64 police cars and some 105 officers, those that did the killing ignoring supervisor orders to back down.

Former county prosecutor Timothy McGinty shielded all of the police officers but Brelo from criminal indictments by a grand jury after they appeared before the grand jury in tears, fake tears, in fact, say community activists.

Led by 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, Black clergy and community activists, McGinty lost a bid for reelection last year to current county prosecutor Michael O'Malley, a fellow Democrat, and following fallout from his supports of cops in celebrated excessive force cases, also including police killing cases of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, and a host of others.

Brelo faced manslaughter charges in 2015 in a bench trial before Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John 'Donnell who, on May 23, 2015,  freed him on all charges, namely two counts of voluntary manslaughter.

The verdict heightened racial tensions between police and the Black community with police in riot gear arresting some 71 protesters the day the verdict was issued by Judge O'Donnell, most arrested on charges primarily of obstruction of official business and resisting arrest, many for scrimmages with police.

O'Donnell, who is White, lost a a bid for the Ohio Supreme Court last year by roughly 24,000 votes following fallout from Black voters and his own Democratic party regarding his controversial verdict and criticism from activists and several Black members of Cleveland City Council, led by Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell.

The city of Cleveland is currently under a court-monitored consent decree for police reforms with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Community activists want consent decrees for police reforms in suburban Cleveland such as University Heights, Euclid, Garfield Heights, Shaker Heights, Beachwood, Berea, Bedford Heights, Middleburg Heights, and Lyndhurst.

ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com , Ohio's most read digital Black newspapers with some 5 million readers on Google Plus alone. And the ClevelandUrbanNews.Com website stats reveal some 26 million hits since 2012. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.