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Bernie Sanders to speak in Ohio on April 14, Sanders choosing Nina Turner as his co-campaign chairperson....Turner is a former Ohio senator and prior Cleveland councilwoman..... By editor Kathy Wray Coleman and field reporter Johnette Jernigan
- 10 April 2019
- Kathy
Cleveland activists to rally April 8 in 4-year-old Aniya Day-Garrett's murder, an anniversary rally on their demands for systemic changes in Cuyahoga County Job and Family Services since Aniya's death last year...Mom and her mom's boyfriend found guilty
- 07 April 2019
- Kathy
Pictured is four-year-old greater Cleveland murder victim Aniya Day-Garrett
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and 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.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland activists, led by Black on Black Crime Inc, the Inner City Republican Movement of Cleveland and the Black Man's Army, will hold an update rally in the murder of four-year-old Aniya Day Garrett as it relates to Cuyahoga County Job and Services at 7 pm on Monday April 8, 2019 outside of the Jame Edna Hunter Building in Cleveland at 3955 Euclid Avenue/ (Call 216-804-7462 for more information).
Activists say the rally is an update rally and a anniversary rally from April 8, 2018 when they camped out overnight outside of the Jane Edna Hunter Building to demand systemic changes by Job and Family Services, and to call out Cuyahoga County Council and County Executive Armond Budish.
At this year's rally, which is not an overnight rally, they will again take testimony from victims of Job and Family Services regarding the abuse and murder of children and families under its watch, as well as regarding excessive sentences of Black men by the 34 largely White judges of the general division common pleas court.
The mother of Day- Garrett and the mother's boyfriend, both found guilty of aggravated murder and other charges, a celebrated case of child murder that has gained nationwide attention and has rocked the largely Black major American city of Cleveland, were both sentenced to life in prison by Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McCormick last month.
The death penalty was not on the table.
The child's mother, Sierra Day, 24, and her boyfriend, Deonte Lewis, 27, were both found guilty of aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, permitting child abuse, endangering children and tampering with evidence.
Day was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, and Lewis will be eligible for parole after 24-years in prison.
Lewis' family members, who are upset at what they call an excessive sentence and say they will rally on Monday with activists, broke into tears after the verdict by a 12-member Cuyahoga County jury that deliberated for a day was read in open court.
Speaking before a packed courtroom, Judge McCormick called the death "a committed form of torture."
Activists say McCormick's sentence against Lewis is excessive and indicative of an ongoing pattern of excessive sentences against young Black men.
Others disagree as the debate looms on as to whether Lewis was a live-in boyfriend and whether his silence or culpability relative to the abuse of Aniya merits a life sentence.
Public records reveal that since 2015 more than 44 kids that have come through the office of child and protective services have been murdered and classified as homicide victims among 269 kids.
Most of the murder victims are Black and poor, like Aniya, data show.
David Merriman, a former special assistant to former county executive Ed FitzGerald and a former deputy chief of staff for Health and Human Services under county executive Budish, is the administrator of Job and Family Services for the county.
A Democrat and former Beachwood councilman, state representative and speaker of the Ohio House, Budish assumed office as county executive in 2015.
He has said nothing publicly on the issue since the verdict.
There have been some improvements or recommendations from Job and Family Services authorities and county officials since Aniya's untimely death last year, including recommendations for more social workers and investigators, and a citizen's advisory board comprised of eight to 10 members of the greater Cleveland community.
But community activists complain the initiatives are minimal, and after the fact.
Community activists remain upset with the system over the Black child's murder.
Neither Day, nor Lewis, took the stand during the five-day trial.
Their attorneys said at trial that there was no direct evidence that links their clients to the crime and that neither delivered the alleged blow that allegedly killed the innocent child.
Prosecutors relied primarily on testimony from first responders, including police.
Cuyahoga County Job and Family services social worker Lorra Greene testified and said Day was a good mother at first, but lost her way after she began dating Lewis.
Assistant County Prosecutor Anna Faraglia praised the jury verdict and said justice prevailed. And at trial, she called Day a "master manipulator."
Defense attorneys have not said whether they will appeal, though sources say an appeal is likely, given the severity of the crimes.
Aniya died on March 11 2018 at an area hospital after police were called that day to her mother's home at Cultural Garden Apartments on Lake Shore Boulevard in suburban Euclid, Ohio for a report of an unresponsive child.
The boyfriend lived there too, said prosecutors, a statement Lewis and his attorneys have denied.
The child was not breathing and had marks on her feet and legs, trial court records reveal.
Led by Black Lives Matter Cleveland, activists immediately began protesting.
The county medical examiner said the four-year-old suffered a stroke from blunt force trauma to the head and was malnourished and weighed hardly 29 pounds.
Mickhal Garrett, Aniya's biological father, told the jury he filed a complaint with Cuyahoga County Job and Family Services when he allegedly saw signs of abuse and that he also filed a report with East Cleveland police.
Still, said Garrett, who has since filed a wrongful death claim in his daughter's death against the county, Job and Family Services and an array of other defendants, kept her in the custody of her mother, and even after he sought custody.
Though state authorities have stripped the affiliated day care of its licence for allegedly failing to report the abuse and at least one employee in the matter has been fired from Job and Family Services, accountability from county officials and others involved in the sordid case is little to none, activists say.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and 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.
Ohio Congresswoman Fudge caught between Congressman Tim Ryan's bid for president and his strained relationship with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.... Upset over GM's Lordstown, Ohio plant closing, Rep Ryan says he can beat President Trump in Ohio
- 06 April 2019
- Kathy
Pictured are U.S. House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi (wearing blue)(D-CA), a San Francisco Democrat who will keynote the Ohio Democratic Party's annual state dinner next month, US. Rep.Tim Ryan (D-OH), a Youngstown, Ohio area Democrat who this week officially announced a 2020 run for president, and Ohio 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (( wearing red) D-OH), a Warrensville Heights Democrat and former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus whose largely Black congressional district includes Cleveland
.Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and 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.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief. Coleman is an experienced Black political reporter who covered the 2008 presidential election for the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio and the presidential elections in 2012 and 2016 at Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-Washington, D.C. - U.S. Rep Tim Ryan (OH-13), a Youngstown, Ohio area Democrat who challenged Nancy Pelosi in 2016 for House Minority Leader but lost by a 2-to-1 margin, formally announced his 2020 run for president at a rally in Youngstown and appeared Wednesday on ABC's "The View"
A pivotal state for presidential elections, Ryan said Ohio in particular is hurting economically and that he remains upset at the closing late last year of the General Motors plant in Lordstown, an area he represents.
He joined Rep Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), a Toledo Democrat whose 9th congressional district extends to Cleveland and the dean of the Ohio Delegation, and three other congressional colleagues, including Joyce Beatty of Columbus, via a letter sent last year to President Donald Trump formally asking the president to visit the communities impacted by General Motors' decision to close Lordstown, three other U.S. plants and one in Canada
“That’s why I am running for president,” said Ryan on "The View" in highlighting the GM plant closings and the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ohio and across the nation, “It’s time to do something."
How his strained relationship with Speaker of the House of Representative Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democratic who rose to Speaker this year after the Democrats reclaimed control of the House via the November midterm elections, will impact his presidential ambitions remains to be seen, Pelosi to keynote the Ohio Democratic Party's state dinner next month in Columbus.
The federal lawmaker not only challenged the now Speaker of the House for House Minority leader in 2016, he was also one of 32 congressional Democrats that opposed her nomination to be Speaker this year, though Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat and the first woman to lead a majority party in congress, ran uncontested.
Whether 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, a prior chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, will endorse Ryan's bid for president will be interesting to see, political pundits have said.
Also a former Warrensville Heights, Ohio mayor and former national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., Fudge is one of two Blacks in congress from Ohio, along with Rep Beatty.
Fudge supported Ryan when he sought to oust Pelosi as House Minority Leader in 2016 but backed Pelosi this year for Speaker, notwithstanding controversy, and after she decided herself not to seek the powerful House Speaker position
Her largely Black 11th congressional district, which includes the largely Black city of Cleveland and several of its eastern suburbs of Cuyahoga County, is a Democratic stronghold and she can, without a doubt, influence votes, data show.
Lordstown is a village in Northeast Ohio and Trumbull County.
It is part of the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA metropolitan statistical area
The Lordstown plant closing quickly became a political football for the presidential election, and across partisan lines in general, U.S. Sens, Sherrod Brown, of Cleveland, and a Democrat, and Rob Portman, a Republican, among those fighting against the plant closings
The GM automaker announced last year that the company would leave transmission plants in Warren and White Marsh, Maryland, and assembly plants in Detroit, Ontario and Lordstown, Ohio “unallocated in 2019.”
Some 14,000 GM workers will either be displaced or will lose their jobs relative to the plant closings, which GM says is part of its global restructuring initiative.
But Lordstown,said Ryan to CNN'S Chris Cuomo, is among many of his campaign platform initiatives, beating president Trump, who has yet to draw a credible challenger for the Republican nomination for president, at the top of his campaign list.
Congressman Ryan says he is in the best position to oust Trump from the White House among the crowded field of Democratic candidates for president, including U.S. Sens Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke, who campaigned in Ohio last month and against the closing of the Lordstown plant, and possible contender, former vice president Joe Biden, the front- runner ahead of Sanders.
The congressman said he can win where it counts and in pivotal Midwestern states.
"Coming from the industrial Midwest I believe that I could win Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, rebuild that blue wall that president Trump took down," said Ryan, 45, one of the youngest to date to officially announce a 2020 run for president.
The Midwest consists of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.
Trump won Ohio in 2016, no Democrat ever winning the White House without first winning Ohio and no Republican doing so of remembrance.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and 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.
Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur opposes Trump's proposed cuts to science and scientific research, and the weatherization program that helps the elderly and the poor with high energy bills... Kaptur's 9th congressional district extends to Cleveland
- 04 April 2019
- Kathy
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CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-Washington, D.C. — U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), a Toledo Democrat whose 9th congressional district extends to parts of Cleveland and who is chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development,.held a subcommittee hearing on Wednesday on the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget request for the Department of Energy’s science, energy, and environmental management programs.
She said the country is at risk with Trump's proposed budget.
"The president’s budget request harms America’s energy future, our competitiveness, our consumers, and our economy, " said Kaptur at the hearing ."The Trump budget also falls short in meeting our obligations to the communities that have sacrificed, and still bear the brunt of costs borne from winning World War II."
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Cleveland Plain Dealer lays off a slew of unionized reporters from what the Reverend Jesse Jackson calls its "lily White and re-segregated newsroom"
- 03 April 2019
- Kathy
Pictured is the Reverend Jesse Jackson
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and 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.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, has laid off 15 unionized newsroom employees, mainly veteran reporters, a follow-up to management's announcement last month of the newsroom shakeup.
Exactly how many Blacks were let go remains a mystery, though few Blacks work in the Plain Dealer's newsroom anyway, a newsroom that serves, among others, the largely Black major American city of Cleveland, a city led by longtime mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor.
Speaking at a conference of the National Association of Black Journalists in August of last year, Civil Rights icon the Rev Jesse Jackson Sr., also a former presidential candidate, called the newsrooms of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Columbus Dispatch, Ohio's second largest newspaper, "lily White and re-segregated."
Research reveals that practically all of those laid off from the newsroom are White, aside from longtime reporter Janet Cho, a respected female journalist who is Asian- American.
Black leaders have said that the lack of diversity, via reporters and editors in particular, and as to its editorial board, remains an issue of concern and that it impacts the reporting of the news, particularly as it relates to what is really happening in the Black community relative to matters of public concern, from racism to negative coverage of Black elected officials.
Three employees from the page production unit, 29 of them to be laid off in May, will be shifted to the newsroom, making the exit of newsroom employees a net of 12 layoffs, newspaper officials said last week.
The replaced page production unit, mainly page designers and copy editors, will be centralized out of the state with the union jobs outsourced from the Plain Dealer's parent company of Advance Publications, which oversees them now, to its subsidiary company of Advance Local, a move that has upset the Guild, a union that represents 68 Plain Dealer employees, including reporters, copy editors, designers, photographers, and illustrators.
Editor since January of 2015 following a shake-up and mass layoffs of more than 50 employees in 2013, including reporters, photojournalists, and columnists, Rodrigue has said that in spite of the layoffs "the Plain Dealer will remain a local institution."
Rodrigue blames the layoffs on declining revenue, growing social media and digital news competition, increased operating costs, and a reduced readership, among other assertions.
The Guild, which does not buy his assertions, said in a statement that "as the journalists who produce Cleveland’s newspaper, we’re asking for your help, [and ] we are losing experienced reporters and fear that it is only the beginning."
The layoffs' decision, which impacts more that a third of the newspaper's unionized staff, caps weeks of management-union negotiations since February that reached an impasse with the union contract expiring in February, union members voting last week to extend the union contract to 2020.
Guild unit chair Ginger Christ said in a statement that the Plain Dealer will soon be reduced to 33 unionized journalists from 340 some twenty- years-ago.
Company officials have invited the impacted employees to apply for lower-paying, non-union jobs they qualify for at Cleveland.com, which is owned by Advance Ohio, and led by Chris Quinn, the digital content editor and Cleveland.com president.
The Guild had accused hierarchical decision makers at the Plain Dealer of trading local news for a centralized unit removed from the community, and of ignoring the union's proposal for more subscribers to reduce the number of layoffs, and strategies for keeping the news centrally located.
More than 450 music fans and supporters joined members of the Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild-CWA, Local 1 for a sold-out show at the Beachland Ballroom concert club in Cleveland on Feb. 9, among them Harriet Applegate, executive secretary of the North Shore Federation of Labor, and former Local 1 President Dick Peery, a former reporter and a Plain Dealer retiree who remains passionate about union rights and union issues.
Founded in 1872, the Plain Dealer has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Ohio, and had roughly 250,000 daily readers and 790,000 readers on Sundays before it switched to a four-day delivery newspaper in 2015, including Sundays.
Two years earlier, in 2013, the newspaper reported daily readership of 543,110 and a Sunday's readership of 858,376, a drop of nearly 50 percent of daily readers from 2013 to 2015 when it began under the leadership of Rodrigue with a reduced delivery week, and more than 50 fewer employees.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and 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.
More Articles...
- MLK assassination anniversary march by the Greater Cleveland NAN is April 4, 2019 at 4 pm at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland, which follows a noon luncheon ... A free community program follows the march
- Cleveland Fox 8 News live coverage of vigil of unsolved murders of four Cleveland women on Cleveland's largely Black east side, an event organized by Imperial Women Coalition and activist Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com
- Laura Cowan to keynote the Cleveland E. 93rd Street Murders rally and march on March 28, 2019, Cowan a CNN Hero and domestic violence survivor....TLed By the Imperial Women Coalition the community will remember 5 murder victims
- Laura Cowan, Euclid NAACP President Cassandra McDonald to keynote the Cleveland E. 93rd Street Murders rally and march on March 28, 2019, Cowan a CNN Hero and domestic violence survivor....The community will remember murder victims
