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(www.clevelandurbannews.com)/(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (pictured), a Warrensville Heights Democrat whose largely Black 11th congressional district includes the city of Cleveland and several of its eastern suburbs, has endorsed Parma Safety Director Mike O'Malley over embattled county prosecutor Tim McGinty for the March Democratic primary.
The endorsement, which Fudge, who is Black, highlighted in a letter to executive committee members of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, comes as the executive committee, on behalf of the party, will make an official endorsement at a meeting on Dec. 17, if it makes an endorsement in that race. (Editor's note: An endorsement requires a 60 percent vote by the executive committee).
"I support the congresswoman's endorsement 100 percent," said Charle E. Bibb Sr., a party operative and former East Cleveland councilman who leads the greater Cleveland Carnegie Roundtable. "The Black community will not survive four more years of Tim McGinty."
And yesterday evening Cleveland Ward 1 members of the executive committee, a largely Black east side ward with a staunch middle class voting base, met and overwhelmingly told Councilman Terrell Pruitt, who represents the ward and led the meeting, that they have no love for McGinty, and want him gone.
They will be among members of the executive committee that will vote on Dec 17 on a potential official endorsement for county prosecutor, and other races.
Among other executive committee members at the Ward 1 meeting was Nina Turner, a former Ward 1 councilwoman and prior state senator who is currently the national surrogate for the Bernie Sanders for president campaign.
But Ward 1 did not embrace O'Malley's candidacy at its unofficial meeting last night, some telling Cleveland Urban News.Com afterwards that he is not much different than McGinty, though the general sentiment about town begs to differ.
McGinty, his enemies say, went too far.
A former west side Cleveland councilman, former assistant county prosecutor and prior deputy under former county prosecutor Bill Mason, O'Malley, some also say, including some Black elected officials speaking on condition of anonymity, is the lesser of the two evils. Or is he?
A Parma Democrat and McGinty's predecessor, Mason had issues with Black people too, including some Black elected officials, and, like McGinty, was often overzealous in prosecuting Black people, sources said. And Mason, like McGinty, typically leaned in favor of police. But he was not, they say, as confrontational, and as disrespectful to the Black community. And, say sources, Mason is smarter than McGinty, and has better people skills.
But O'Malley, Mason's protege, is not Mason, which is where O'Malley has the edge, possibly.
Both McGinty and O'Malley are White, and the winner of the Democratic primary election will likely win the November election, data show, since Cuyahoga County is a Democratic stronghold.
At a meeting of city ward leaders on Dec. 5 O'Malley won the non-binding endorsement over McGinty, 24-13, a rejection by party members that is unprecedented for a sitting Cuyahoga County prosecutor.
A cadre of Black leaders and community activists angry over McGinty's handling of the police murder case of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, which is currently before a county grand jury for a possible indictment of police on criminal charges, are against him too. They are also upset over his illegal and unconstitutional adoption of erroneous office policies that protect police that gun down unarmed Black people. (Editor's note: A particular policy at issue is McGinty's illegal stance that cops that kill people, unlike others, mainly Blacks, cannot be charged preliminary with felonies at the municipal level before a grand jury convenes. This, data show, protects them from arrest and high court-issued bonds in the event that a municipal court judge finds probable cause following a complaint by a city prosecutor. And it is illegal, in particular under state law. See Ohio Revised Code 2935.10).
McGinty has taken more than a year to present the Rice case to the county grand jury, a departure from his typical anxiousness to prosecute felony cases. That too has caused tension in the Black community.
Some Black elected officials that will not tell Cleveland Urban News.Com one way or another who they intend to endorse for county prosecutor agree that McGinty is in deep political trouble.
"This is an unprecedented rejection of a Cuyahoga County Prosecutor by his own party," said state Rep. Bill Patmon, a Cleveland Democrat and former city councilman.
McGinty has been campaigning and asked executive committee members in a letter dated Dec 16 to support him, though time will tell if his political machine can out do that of Mason, now a partner in the Cleveland office of the law firm of Bricker and Eckler.
A former longtime common pleas judge, McGinty is also in conflict with several of the 34 largely White and majority Democratic judges of the general division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, and undercurrent in his office is rampant, sources say.
He is combative, and acts erratic at times, his critics say.
He attacked chief common judge John Russo and common pleas judge John Sutula, both Democrats, in a Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper article published in July, saying they are slow in processing criminal cases.
Sutula shot back and accused McGinty of rushing criminal cases through the common pleas court and denying defendants, a disproportionate number of whom are Black, due process of law.
In May McGinty allegedly orchestrated an acquittal before his friend and former judicial colleague Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell in a voluntary manslaughter bench trial in which the judge acquitted Cleveland Police Officer Michael Brelo, who is White, of gunning down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012, and while firing 49 bullets. Twelve other non-Black police officers involved in the deadly shooting, who together fired the remainder of the 137 shots at Williams and Russell, escaped prosecution with McGinty's help.
Last month a multi-cultural group of area clergy, led by Olivet Institutional Baptist Church Senior Pastor the Rev Dr. Jawanza Colvin, joined community activists in calling for McGinty to step aside relative to the grand jury process after he released expert reports from biased experts that he handpicked, and that critics say tainted the forum to protect the cops at issue. He also publicly harassed Rice's grieving mother, Samara, Rice, a political plunder, and the catalyst for the demands from community activists and the Black community that he resign.
Community activists also want McGinty, who is currently serving the third year of a first four-year term, voted out of office.
"We want Tim McGinty voted out of office," said veteran community activist Art McKoy, founder of the grassroots group Black on Black Crime Inc. "He was supposed to be fair and serve the people and all he did was serve the police."
Tamir Rice was gunned down on November 22, 2014 in less than two seconds when White police officers Timothy Loehmann, who pulled the trigger, and Frank Gamback, pulled up at a public park and recreation center on the city's west side where the Black kid was toting a toy gun, and following a foiled 9-11 call.
Experts commissioned by the Rice family attorneys regarding the grand jury process that may or may not result in criminal charges against police say in their reports that the fatal police shooting, which has gained national attention, was excessive force, coupled with gross negligence by untrained and trigger- happy cops.
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