Pictured are Stephen Curry (wearing white jersey) of the Golden State Warriors and Kawhi Leonard of the Toronto Raptors

By editor Kathy Wray Coleman

Coleman has covered NBA basketball and NFL football events here at Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com since 2013.

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-Oaklandm California-In their first ever appearance in the NBA Finals, the Toronto Raptors beat the legendary Golden State Warriors Thursday night at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, winning Game 6  114-109 and taking the series 4-2 to bring home the franchise's first ever NBA title.

Kyle Lowry finished with 26 points, seven rebounds and 10 assists to lead the Raptors, Pascal Siakam added 26, and  Kawhi Leonard, named the playoffs MVP,  got 22, he and  and VanFleet, VanFleet his team win the title.

Raptors head coach Nick Nurse was elated.

"It's great, obviously this is what you dream about," said Nurse after his team's historic championship win

Klay Thompson, who left the game injured in the third quarter, led the Warriors with 30 points, and Andre Iguodala put up 22 points.

Stephen Curry, the Warriors' starter and former MVP who helped carry his team to the playoffs, as did starters Iguodala, Thompson and Dravon Green, struggled Thursday, and scored only 22 points. And he missed a necessary 3-pointer with some five seconds left.

Drayvon Green put up 11 points for the Warriors.

The finals series is the best of seven games, the Warriors leaving their arena last night after a stunning loss that came in the absence of Warriors' superstar Kevin Durant, who was lost to a calf injury in the second round of the playoffs and played briefly in Game 5 of the finals before an Achilles injury sidelined him for the rest of the finals.

The Raptors finally had their moment, one previously denied to them because they could not get pass Cleveland in recent years to win an Eastern Conference title that would have elevated them to the finals.

Cleveland Cavaliers' fans can clap at the Warriors' loss, the six-time NBA champions, led by head coach Steve Kerr, winning over Cavs for the championship title last year, a four games sweep that brought tears to the eyes of some Cleveland fans.

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Last year's finals series was the fourth consecutive NBA Finals match up between the Warriors and the Cavs, who won the title only in 2016, and over the Warriors.

The Cavaliers trailed the entire Game 4 of last year's finals, and were down by an embarrassing 21 points at the end of the third quarter, Cleveland unable to overcome the greatness of Curry, and Durant, and the talent of Green, Thompson, an Iguodala, the quintet that helped to bring an NBA championship title for the Warriors against the Cavs in 2017.

But Durant, Drayvon Green,Thompson, Iguodala and Curry could not pull it off  for this year's finals series,  injuries aside.

Durant's absence was no doubt felt,  and losing Thompson to a knee injury in the third quarter did not help.

The Cavs' losing at the NBA Finals last year, and problems leading up to the loss, shook up the franchise, LeBron James leaving for a second time via a  four-year $153.3 million contract deal with Los Angeles, and Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue later fired, his replacement, Larry Drew, now gone too.

"Thank you Northeast Ohio for an incredible four seasons," James said after signing a mega millions contract last year with Los Angeles, which, like Cleveland, did not make the playoffs this year. "This will always be home."

While Cleveland fans are not as enamored with James since he left the Cavs last year, his departure in 2018 was far less contentious than when he abruptly left Cleveland and  signed with Miami in 2010 and Cleveland fans burned his jersey in public.

An Akron, Ohio Native who entered the NBA in 2003 after graduating from the city's  St. Vincent-St. Mary's Vincent High School, James won his first two championships while playing for the Heat, in 2012 and 2013.

He returned to Cleveland in 2014, leading the Cavaliers to the championship title in 2016.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest NBA players of all time, James has "won three NBA championships, four NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, three NBA Finals MVP Awards, three NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards, two Olympic gold medals, an NBA scoring title, and the NBA Rookie of the Year Award. James is a 14-time NBA All-Star, 11-time All-NBA first teamer, and five-time All-Defensive first teamer."

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

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND,Ohio-Led by Women's March Cleveland, Refusefacism.org, the Carl Stokes Brigade, and the Black Women's Political Action Committee, greater Cleveland activist groups will rally at 11 am on June 15, 2019 on the steps of Cleveland City Hall next to the Free Stamp in downtown Cleveland as part of a national day of protest calling for an inquiry into the impeachment of President Donald Trump, the event spearheaded at the national level by such groups as MoveOn.org, By the People and some 20 other organizations.

Activist Genevieve Mitchell, a former Cleveland School Board Member and prior mayoral candidate, will keynote Cleveland's rally with other speakers to include Black Women's PAC President Elaine Gohlstin, and activists Cheryl Lessin, Brenda Adrine and Steve Holecko, chair of the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus.

Both Mitchell and Holecko will speak on the theme of impeachment, the other speakers slated to address the president's policies across the board that they say disenfranchises America's most vulnerable, including immigration reform, foreign policy, education reproductive rights, housing and employment, and Civil and human rights.

Cleveland is a largely Black major American city and activists say the president has disregarded impoverished urban areas choosing, through is tax and other policies, to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Dubbed #ImpeachTrump Day of Action, organizers say events will occur in some 133 venues in cities across the country, not only in Cleveland, but in Atlanta, Massachusetts and iMinnesota, U.S. Sen and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren and Minnesota Rep. Rashida Tlaib slated to  of impeachment while other places the activist range from public protest like in Cleveland, to coffee shop gatherings

National organizers say they now have some 133 events planned nationwide, up form 75 just last week.

Led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi House Democratic leaders have downplayed impeachment, angering the progressive left, the protests aimed at giving the public a forum  for their own voices the day deemed " a National Action to Defend Democracy.

The growing desire for impeachment, with national polls showing that nearly a quarter of Americas approve of it, comes as the 2020 presidential elections nears and a crowded field of Democrat seeks the nomination to seek to oust Trump, a Republican and a real estate mogul, from power.

It follows the controversial the release of the Mueller report, the official report documenting the findings and conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 United States presidential.

An  NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist Poll finds that some 22% of Americans want impeachment proceeding to ensue against the sitting president , while another 25% want an investigation into potential wrong doing, the president saying it is all a political with hunt, through the Muller report did not exonerate Trump and his entourage from wrongdoing.

But not all of the Dems agree with Pelosi's stance that impeachment proceedings will shine a negative light on the country and might ultimately back fire, Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, a Youngstown area Democrat and president candidate last week publicly  calling for Trump

to be impeached,  and Rep Marcia Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat whose largely Black 11th congressional district include parts of Cleveland Akron and Cleveland's eastern suburbs, speaking this week on the House floor and demanding in the least  an impeachment investigation.

Whether any impeachment process proves fatal to the president remains to be seen, and is unlikely, pundits say.

Impeachment exist under constitutional law and is a two-step process at the federal level.

The House of Representatives must first pass, by a simple majority of those present and voting, articles of impeachment, and then the Senate must do the same.

But it only then that charges are assessed, similar to an felony indictment on criminal charges, and such charges do not mean that a president will be removed from office, which takes a conviction .

Pelosi says the impeachment process is more complicated than most people think, some of her Democratic congressional colleges like Reps Fudge and Ryan pushing for an inquiry into impeachment proceedings anyway.

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.

Pictured are Samaria Rice, the mother of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, whom Cleveland police gunned down in 2014, and Tamir Rice

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief

Coleman is a political and legal journalist and an investigative reporter who has studied collective bargaining law extensively as a journalist and as a previous student at the University of Akron in its doctoral program on a full tuition scholarship . At Akron, Coleman was  ABD  with a straight A academic record

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, CLEVELAND, Ohio– The mother of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, whom Cleveland police gunned down in November of 2014 at the Cudell Recreation Center on the city's west side,  on Monday delivered petitions with more than 170,000 signatures to Cleveland police union headquarters in downtown Cleveland demanding that the union stop its efforts to get an arbitration decision that upheld the city's firing of the White police officer who shot and  killed her son overturned.

Rice said at a press conference on Monday that the petitions are online signatures from change.org and moveon.org

The police union filed an administrative appeal of the arbitrator's decision that upheld the termination of the officer at issue and the case is before Common Pleas Judge Joe Russo, a union advocate who must determine if the arbitrator exceeded his authority, Ohio collective bargaining law of which denies an individual union member the right or standing to appeal an adverse arbitration award independent of the union.

Only the parties to a collective bargaining agreement, in this instance the city and the police union, have such standing.

Hence, absent union support, individual union members fired illegal or legally, including Tamir Rice's killer, have no venue to appeal an adverse arbitration award under Ohio law as it stands to date, Ohio's Republican-led state legislature still unable to tumble unions in Ohio from power.

Most arbitrators that represent the American Arbitration Association that appointed the arbitrator regarding the cop that gunned down Tamir, an appointment in conjunction with the union and the city, are White men, often times attorneys, but not always, and they often rule as they please, regardless of the mandated provisions under the collective bargaining agreement, research  reveals.

Overturning an arbitration award in Ohio is rare, and nearly impossible, though it does occur, sparingly.

On the other hand, management has no problem violating the union agreement, one the Black community sometimes questions as pro-cop, and anti-Black.

Tensions remain high between the police union and the Black community, and between police and Mayor Frank Jackson's law enforcement leadership team, Black police chief Calvin Williams, who was promoted to chief in February of 2014, some nine months before the Rice shooting, making some but not enough leeway, his critics complain. Others approve of his work, and say he has tried to temper unrest between police and Black people, a problem that that is global and systemic in all respects.

Police were summoned to the Cudell Park and Recreation Center on the city's largely White west side on the evening of Nov. 22, 2014 following a foiled 9-1-1 call to police dispatchers that a child was carrying a likely toy  gun, a toy gun in fact of which was later revealed.

Rookie cop Timothy Loehmann fired the deadly bullet that killed the Black boy after he and his partner, Frank Garmback, arrived at the scene and zoomed in on Tamir in less than two seconds, Garmback at the wheel of the police cruiser, precautionary action be damned.

Both escaped indictments on criminal charges with the help of since ousted county prosecutor Tim McGinty, also a retired common pleas judge, and who was succeeded by current county prosecutor Mike O'Malley, a Democrat like McGinty, and a former Parma safety director who is also pro-cop.

But Loehmann was not fired for killing Tamir but for lying on his job application about getting fired as a cop with the  Independence Police Department in Ohio, his personnel file saying he was allegedly fired because he was allegedly unfit.

The city ultimately settle a wrongful death lawsuit with Rice's mother for $6 million.

“This officer has been deemed unfit by top law enforcement officials, but for some reason [CPPA President] Jeff Follmer wants him back on the streets," said Samaria Rice at Monday's press conference outside of the union headquarters for the  .Cleveland Police Patromen's Association (CPPA)

Led by Jeff Follmer, who ousted outspoken union head Steve Loomis in 2017, the CPPA has been staunchly behind Loehmann and Garmback, both Loomis  and Follmer saying the Black kid pulled the toy gun when police arrived, though no such evidence exist to prove such a claim, the union appealing the discipline of the two White cops via the grievance procedure and the arbitration process under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement between the city and CPPA.

Follmer said Monday that the police union has no intention of dismissing its administrative appeal of the arbitration award that upheld Loehmann's firing.

Ongoing protests erupted nationally and locally in 2014 following the shooting death of Tamir, and racial unrest continues to mount against a largely White police department now under a consent decree for police reforms between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice, a consent decree despised by a  police union that is use to doing as it pleases to Black people.

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.