By Kathy Wray Coleman, Publisher, Editor-n-Chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper

CLEVELAND,Ohio- Community activists will discuss gun violence and gun control measures during a segment today, Dec. 23 at 5 pm on the Art McKoy University of Common Sense Show on WERE 1490 AM Talk Radio in Cleveland, a Radio One news station. The show call in phone number is 216-578-1490.

Guests for the show are Black NRA members, including Community Activist Donna Walker Brown.

At 7 pm after the show airs Walker Brown, a motorcycle club member who says she will run for Cleveland mayor next year, said that the Omens Motorcycle Club, based in the Buckeye-Woodland area on Cleveland's predominantly Black east side, will hold a vigil in front of the radio station building at Radio One, that also houses WZAK 93.1 FM,   2510 St. Clair Ave. in Cleveland. The candlelight vigil, said Walker Brown, is to remember the 20 Connecticut first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School and six educators gunned down at the school last week by suspected shooter Adam Lanza, who then turned the gun on himself.

The shootings have reignited the national debate on gun violence and gun control.

McKoy (pictured in hat), like many Cleveland area community activists, is for gun control and is against the policies of the National Rifle Association, He says he welcomes the community discussion around the controversial issue.

Meanwhile, Ohio State Rep. Bill Patmon (pictured (D-10), a Cleveland Democrat, has introduced a  bill in the Ohio State Legislature around metal detectors in schools to protect public school children in Ohio and wants a state law with criminal penalties for parents and guardians that do not have locks on guns that get into the hands of children only to result in avoidable shooting tragedies of innocent children and other people.

"These bills are designed to protect the children in Ohio as we as state legislators are required to do," said Patmon, a junior state representative and former city council member of Ward 8 who lost a bid for mayor in 2009 against current Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson.

In the wake of the deadly Connecticut shootings, the NRA has called for teachers from across the nation to have a gun for protection in every public school classroom, a radical posture by most standards but not a surprise coming from the conservative gun toting group.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Publisher, Editor-n-Chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives scolded their own leader on Friday, rejecting a proposed compromise by House Speaker John Boehner (pictured) (R-8) of Ohio for an agreement for the wealthiest Americans to give up the current tax cut on the rich in order to tame negotiations with President Obama (pictured) and Congressional Democrats to avert a fiscal cliff,  a financial crisis measure set to go in effect on Jan. 1 if federal lawmakers cannot reach an agreement on deficit reduction goals by the end of the year.

House lawmakers, instead, went home empty handed for Christmas but will return on Wednesday to try to hammer out an agreement, the president said during a press conference with reporters on Friday.

Headed to Hawaii to spend Christmas with First Lady Michelle Obama and their two daughters, Malia,14, and Sasha,11, Obama urged patience by congress, and relaxation as the Christmas holiday nears.

"So as we leave town for a few days to be with our families for the holidays, I hope it gives everybody some perspective," said Obama in a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com on Friday. "Everybody can cool off, everybody can drink some egg nog, have some Christmas cookies, sing some Christmas carols, enjoy the company of loved ones."

The series of tax increases and spending cuts that would take place if the fiscal cliff materializes has Obama fighting for a resolution, though none is in sight as Dec. 31 looms.

Some 12 types of tax cuts are at issue, including the Bush tax cuts, which include tax cuts for the rich, middle class and others that will expire this year that Congress renewed in 2010 and gives a higher tax cut rate to Americans making in excess of $250 thousand annually. And a payroll tax cut holiday, a 2 percent annual tax cut to working Americans.

After meeting with the president at the White House one-on-one last Sunday morning, Boehner had proposed to both Republican and Democratic House lawmakers on Friday for the Bush tax cuts to be eliminated only for Americans that make $1 million or more annually, an offer shunned from the get go by a majority of House Democrats that also offended his fellow Republicans.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Black Caucus, led by U.S. Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (pictured) (D-11), a Warrenville Hts. Democrat, has balked at any compromise by the president that targets middle class people, the elderly that rely on medicare, medicaid and social security, and the poor, with Fudge issuing a press release against what she called "Boehner's Plan B."

While the debt ceiling compromise is part of the fiscal cliff discussion, Obama, a Democrat who won  a second four-year term as president in November against Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney, has focused more recently on the Bush tax cuts.

President Obama was adamant about eliminating the Bush tax cuts on the rich but wanted them to remain for middle class and poor people. And the pay roll tax cut is likely not to be renewed by Congress, congressional leaders have said.

What compromises America's most passionate first Black president is willing to make to stop a fiscal cliff remains to be seen, critics and supporters alike say.

Both political sides agree that Obama has the edge, coming off of a win in November, and is likely not to give in too easily on wanting the rich to give more rather than bullying America for tax cut after tax cut in the midst of a slowly improving economic decline brought on, say Democrats, by the failed economic policies of the Bush administration.

The Democrats control the Senate, but not the U.S. House of Representatives, with Democrats from both chambers supporting the president on the financial crisis issue.

Eliminating tax cuts for the rich was a cornerstone of the president's reelection campaign.

All but a handful of Republicans, some still reeling from losing the party's bid for president this year, continue to put up stumbling blocks around negotiations to circumvent a fiscal cliff, Democrats complain.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Publisher, Editor-n-Chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspape

CLEVELAND,Ohio- A three-judge-panel of the Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals has ruled a ban by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (pictured) and the City of Cleveland through a city ordinance passed by Cleveland City Council that precluded Occupy Cleveland and others from protesting on Public Square without a permit between what the ordinance calls curfew hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. an unconstitutional violation of the protesters rights to free speech and freedom of assembly under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. And the state appellate court for Cuyahoga County reversed the misdemeanor curfew violation convictions of Occupy Cleveland Members Leatrice Tolls and Erin McCardle in the same decision, which was released on Dec 6 and  is written by Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Patricia Ann Blackmon (pictured) with appeals judges Frank D. Celebreze Jr. and James J. Sweeney concurring.

"We conclude that the activity of the Occupy Cleveland group, including the appellants, was speech-related activity and is protected under the First Amendment.The First Amendment provides in part that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech," wrote Blackmon in a 16 page opinion for the court. "The appellants [McCardle and Tolls] were engaged in peaceful speech-related activity at the Tom L. Johnson public park. The appellants should not have been required to obtain permission to use the park."

Tolls,47, and McCardle, 24, like the other members or former members of Occupy Cleveland, are not at all shy.

"I look forward to my day in court to see why the City of Cleveland and Mayor Frank Jackson think it is okay to deny me my constitutional right to peacefully assemble and to air grievances about our corrupt government in the free speech quadrant of Public Square," said Tolls during an interview with Cleveland Urban News.Com for a previously published article.

Jackson did not return phone calls seeking comment on whether the city will ask the Ohio Supreme Court to hear the case via the filing of a memorandum in support of jurisdiction within the required 45 days time frame after the appellate decision at issue has been journalized. But interim law director Barbara Langhenry said in a press release that "we are investigating our next steps."

The two defendants, or what is termed appellants on appeal, whose cases were consolidated and who did not get jail time from the trial court judge who stayed the guilty judgment pending the outcome of the appeal, are represented by J. Michael Murray and Steven D. Shafron of the law firm of Berkman, Gordon, Murray and DeVan.

Blackmon also said that the claim by the Jackson administration and interim city law director Langhenry that violating free speech in public venues of Cleveland is okay because the protesting and camping by Occupy Cleveland on Public Square was an inconvenience is unfounded, and  a smokescreen for arrogantly trampling upon the free speech rights of protesters.

"When balancing the City’s need to clean the park with the right of appellants to engage in a communicative activity, the latter should always prevail," Blackmon's opinion reads. "Consequently, we believe the City’s law targets and eliminates more than the evil it seeks to remedy, which it claims is convenience and sanitation. "

The city ordinance at issue was on the books before Occupy Cleveland hit town, an indication that its presence served some good in taking on the adoption of unconstitutional city ordinances by the 19-member Cleveland City Council, nine members of whom or Black that represent most of the wards on the city's majority Black east side, though Cleveland Ward 3 Councilman Joe Cimperman, who is White, represents the downtown Cleveland area where Public Square is located.

The appeal was prosecuted following pleas of no contest to misdemeanor charges including resisting arrest, trespassing on public property and violating the now deemed unconstitutional city curfew ordinance in Cleveland Municipal Court by Tolls and  McCardle, both White community activists. They and nine other Occupy Cleveland members were arrested in October of last year by Cleveland police in swat gear at a protest on public square that drew some 300 people angry at corporate greed and malfeasance by banks and mortgage companies locally and from across the nation.

Mayor Jackson, who is Black, initially allowed permits for the tents and protests but after the permits expired late in 2011 he wanted Occupy Cleveland gone, saying Christmas season was coming and the city had other plans for Public Square, a center of the downtown section of the majority Black major metropolitan city of some 400,000 people.

Occupy Cleveland is a local model of Occupy Wall Street, an international movement against corporate greed and malfeasance. It emerged in Cleveland in July 2011 and after several protests in front of Cleveland City Hall its members took camp in tents in a quadrant of Public Square. It was supported by Cleveland Ward 14 Councilman Brian Cummins and  Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Cleveland Democrat and former Cleveland mayor who has been named as a possible contender for next year's Cleveland mayor race among to date Jackson himself, millionaire businessman Ken Lanci, and Community Activist Donna Walker Brown.

The once engaged Occupy Cleveland, though, has all but disbanded in recent months, controversy notwithstanding.

The mayor's spokesperson on Occupy Cleveland told Cleveland Urban News.Com in 2011 shortly after the arrest last year of the Occupy Cleveland 11 that Jackson supports efforts to end foreclosure corruption and mortgage fraud but that he disagrees with the way Occupy Cleveland, a largely White group with most members between the ages of 20 and 35, has gone about doing it.

"Mayor Jackson led Cleveland City Council in passing a predatory lending law long before other cities were even aware of the issues and he sued over banks and mortgage companies for the damages that they caused to Cleveland neighborhoods," said Jackson Chief of Staff Ken Silliman in an interview in 2011.

The free speech win is bittersweet as four former Occupy Cleveland members, all White men, were sentenced to long prison terms by federal district court judge David Dowd after pleading  guilty earlier this year to plotting to bomb Route 82 bridge in April in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Sagamore Hills between Cleveland and Akron, Oh. with dummy explosives provided by an FBI informant.

Brandon Baxter, 21, of Lakewood, Oh., was sentenced to 9 years and 9 months in prison, Connor Stephens, 21, of Berea, Oh., received an 8 year prison sentence and Anthony Hayne, 35, received a 6 year sentence.

Ring Leader Douglas White, 27, of Indianapolis, In., was handed a sentence of 11 and 1/2 years in prison.

A fifth suspect Joshua Safford, 23, of Cleveland, is undergoing psychiatric analysis and his case is still pending.

The guilty pleas earlier this year from those sentenced came after former pleas of not guilty and claims by defense attorneys, including Stephens defense attorney Terry Gilbert of Cleveland, that the men were victims of a sting by federal authorities at the hands of paid FBI informant Shaquille Azir, 39, who found them housing and fed them food and drugs.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Publisher, Editor-n-Chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper

CLEVELAND,Ohio- The second of two unarmed Black victims gunned down last month by a group of White Cleveland police officers was laid to rest Saturday morning as friends, family and community gathered at Integrated Faith Assembly Church on  Cleveland's predominantly Black east side for funeral services for Malissa Williams (pictured), 30.

Timothy Russell, 43, was driving the car that police say backfired in front of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center on Nov. 29, causing some 30 police cars to chase him and Williams, a passenger, for more than 25 minutes until surrounding the car at Wymore and Terrace Avenues in East Cleveland and shooting 137 bullets at it, gangsta-style.

Russell was buried the week before and his family members attended services for Williams.

Both families have called the shootings racist and cold blooded murder. And they want more answers from city officials and police in Cleveland and East Cleveland.

East Cleveland is a small majority Black impoverished suburb of Cleveland, a largely Black major metropolitan city of some 400,000  residents. Both have their own dramas, and citizen driven complaints of police brutality and other alleged egregious interactions by police against the Black communities of both municipalities.

No gun or shell casings other than police debris were found in or near the car, police said. Gun residue tests also clear the alleged victims, sources say.

Both Williams and Russell were Black and Cleveland police union leaders have called the shootings "a good shooting."

The Ohio ACLU and community activists are calling for local and county authorities, including Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty and county sheriff Bob Reid, and police and city officials in Cleveland and East Cleveland, to step away from the investigation and allow federal authorities to intervene to ensure due process protections for Williams and Russell.

Community activists protested at a community forum at Shaw High School last week on the deadly shootings .

Also calling for an FBI takeover of the investigation are the Cleveland NAACP, Ohio Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (D-11), and Olivet Institutional Baptist Church senior pastor the Rev. Dr.  Jawanza Colvin, among others .

Jeff Follmer, president of the Cleveland Policemen's Association, balked at anybody but the locals he knows and McGinty, who took campaign contributions and was endorsed by the Cleveland police union for county prosecutor this year, to handle the case.

All of the 13 Cleveland police officers involved in the shootings are White, except one, and he is Hispanic. Those accused are either on paid administrative leave or have been returned to work, Cleveland officials have said.

Since 1974 no citizen complaint against Cleveland police has been found valid by Cleveland officials, data show.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Publisher, Editor-n-Chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Greater Cleveland community activists will hold a vigil to remember the Connecticut shooting victims of 20 elementary school children and six adults on Sunday, Dec 16 at 7 pm in the parking lot of WERE 1490 AM radio station,  the building at 2510 St Clair Ave in Cleveland that also houses Radio One and WZAK 93.1 FM, said Donna Walker Brown, founder of the Urban Educational Justice League and one of the organizer's of the event. (For more information call Art McKoy at 216-253-4070 or Judy Martin at 216-990-0679)

"We are holding a candlelight vigil by greater Cleveland community activists to send our condolences to the families of those affected by the killings in Newtown, Conn. and the citizens of the town," said Walker Brown "This is particularly devastating to that town because they have never experienced any type of tragedy of this magnitude as a community."

Newtown, Conn became a household name on Friday, Dec 14 when alleged shooter Adama Lanza (pictured), 20, shot his mother divorcee mother in the face multiple times and killed her and then starred in a massacre close to the Newtown home where he and his mother lived,  gunning down 20 elementary school first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, including the school principal, a psychiatrist, teachers and a school guidance counselor.

Lanza then turned the gun on himself and died of a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He left behind a slew of unanswered questions, and a ferocious debate on gun violence and gun control that promises to linger into the new year.

The shootings have devastated the country, drawing a media frenzy along the lines of the 9/11 attacks.

Art McKoy, founder of Black on Black Crime who along with Community Activists Al Porter produces The Art McKoy University of Common Sense Show that airs on Sunday's from 5 pm to 7 pm on WERE 1490 AM, said that he will discuss the unprecedented shootings tonight and then join his fellow activists after the show at the candlelight vigil.

Other groups that attended the vigil include Survivors/Victims of Tragedy, also a sponsor of the event, Peace in the Hood, and The Imperial Women.