Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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, associate publisher, editor-in-chief. A former biology teacher, Coleman is a legal, political and investigative reporter who trained at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio for 17 years.
CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS-COM, CLEVELAND Ohio- Greater Cleveland community activists, led by Black Lives Matter Cleveland, will protest Friday, June 12, 2020 beginning at 6 pm outside of FirstEnergy Stadium in downtown Cleveland where the Cleveland Browns play NFL football with the family of Luke Stewart (pictured), a 23-year-old Black man killed by a White Euclid, Ohio cop in March of 2017, Euclid a neighboring Cleveland suburb that is roughly 60 percent Black but is run by White folks.
There is no Browns game Friday, the team's first preseason game Aug 15 at 1 pm against the Cincinnati Bears.
According to the Black Lives Matter Facebook event page for the protest activists said that they will demand justice for Stewart at the public event, and all Black men and women gunned down or otherwise erroneously killed by overanxious police officers, usually White cops.
"That was my son and we want justice," said Stewart's mother, Mary Stewart, to ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com editor-in-chief Kathy Wray Coleman at a sit-in rally led by Black Lives Matter Cleveland at Euclid City Hall after the tragic incident occurred some two year ago, an incident that has sparked racial unrest in the middle and lower middle class city of some 50,000 people.
Stewart's sister, Tierra Stewart, told ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com that "we need officer Mathew Rhodes off the streets."
Friday's upcoming Black Lives Matter protest comes on the heels of a peaceful protest for justice for 23-year-old Desmond Franklin, whom Cleveland police shot and killed in April on the city's largely White west side, and rioting that broke out in downtown Cleveland during the George Floyd protest May 30, Floyd killed by a White Minneapolis cop who publicly set on his neck following an arrest until he killed him, action that brought nationwide protests and criminal charges and the firings of the arresting cop and the three other involved Minneapolis police officers.
Stewart was shot and killed by Euclid police officer Matthew Rhodes.
Rhodes is White and escaped an indictment in 2017 by a Cuyahoga County grand jury even after activists, led by Black Lives Matter Cleveland, shut down a Euclid City Council meeting that summer during a sit-in over Stewart's killing by police and excessive force by the largely White City of Euclid Police Department.
This is how the incident leading up to Stewart's shooting death purportedly unfolds.
Rhodes and his partner, both of them still employed and on the job with the city of Euclid, were purportedly investigating a report of a suspicious vehicle in the area of South Lakeshore Boulevard and East 215th Street on the day in question.
As Stewart allegedly tried to pull away, police say, officer Rhodes allegedly tried to pull him from the car and then jumped into the moving car ultimately shooting the young Black man five times and killing him.
Police say that Stewart allegedly tried to run them over with his car, a claim his family members and attorneys say they believe is bogus.
Stewart's family sued in federal district court behind the police killing alleging wrong death and a host of other claims.
The suit says in relevant part that Stewart was unnecessarily beaten by officer Rhodes, tasered and fatally shot simply because he tried to drive away from cops that approached him while he was asleep in a parking lot.
A federal district court judge has since dismissed the suit, ruling that the White cop that shot and killed Stewart was justified in doing so, an all too familiar outcome relative to the shooting deaths by White cops of Black men in America.
Stewart's killing by Euclid police is not the only high profile excessive force incident in that town of a young Black man, Black motorist Richard Hubbard, 25, was beaten by a White Euclid police officer on Aug. 12, 2017 during a traffic stop for a suspended driver's license.
A video of that incident went viral.
It was a routine traffic stop, police said of Hubbard's beating, ignoring the fact that the Black young man was beaten unmercifully, his face bruised, and swollen.
Police sad Hubbard resisted arrest, Hubbard later pleading not guilty to initial charges of resisting arrest, driving without a license and a traffic signal violation, charges that prosecutors later dismissed.
Officer Michael Amiott, the culprit, is seen on the dash cam punching Hubbard several times while he was on the ground, and with his partner, another cop, and and other witnesses watching.
Amiott, who was first suspended for 45 days, was later fired, and thereafter reinstated by an arbitrator, who also reduced his 45 day suspension to 15 days.
The officer is now facing misdemeanor charges of two counts of assault and one count of interfering with civil rights as a result of the incident.
Hubbard and a girlfriend in the car he was pulled from and beaten by police have both filed suit against the city, Euclid Mayor Kirsten Holzheimer Gail, who is White, and a number of other defendants, Hubbard also alleging excessive force and other claims against officer Amiott, his partner on the scene, and a third involved officer.
Both the criminal charges against officer Amiott and Hubbard's lawsuit are pending.
Both Euclid and Cleveland are in Cuyahoga County, the state's second largest of its 88 counties that is 29 percent Black.
Cleveland is a party to a court-monitored consent decree for police reforms with the U.S. Department of Justice following several police killings of unarmed Black people since 2012 , including the shooting deaths of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012 and the police killings of Tanisha Anderson and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014.
Others shot and killed by Cleveland police since 2012, or just simply killed by them like Anderson, who was slammed to the ground and killed by a cop during her arrest outside her home on the city's east side following a 9-1-1 call from the family for mental health assistance, include rapper Kenneth Smith, Brandon Jones, and Daniel Ficker, who was White.
Ficker, Smith and Junes were all three under 28-year-old when Cleveland police shot and killed them.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
