Pictured are Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor (wearing Black), Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John P. O'Donnell (in sky blue tie), Cleveland Police Patrolman Michael Brelo (in blue shirt), Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty (in red-pink tie with polka dots), 137 shots unarmed Cleveland police fatal shooting victim Malissa Williams (in white shirt), and 137 shots unarmed Cleveland police fatal shooting victim Timothy Russell (in dark blue sweat shirt).
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist and 22- year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper. (If you are reading this too, you are keeping abreast of the news from Cleveland Ohio, and from its news leader of Cleveland Urban News.Com).
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
Brelo, 31, is currently on trial and faces two counts of voluntary manslaughter for gunning down two unarmed Blacks in 2012.
Other police killings nationwide are also part of the protest, organizers told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news.
The city of Cleveland, led by three-term mayor Frank Jackson, who is Black, is a majority Black major American city. Its largely White police department is the subject of a scathing U.S. Department of Justice report that found systemic problems, including illegal excess force police killings, mainly shootings, and cruel and usual punishment against innocent women, children, and the mentally ill. A consent decree is in the workings.
"We will begin camping out at 11:59 pm tonight and stay over until noon tomorrow, and will rally at 11 am tomorrow," said East Cleveland community activist and Black on Black Crime founder Art McKoy. "We will camp out and some will go to the Brelo trial in the morning, and we are upset that the judge has thrown out gun charges against officer Brelo."
McKoy said that while the camp out also addresses high profile police killings of Blacks nationwide such as teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, and the death this month of 25-year-old Freddie Gray while in custody of Baltimore police, Brelo is the main issue.
Last week Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell tossed out two gun specifications charges against Brelo but denied defense counsel's Rule 29 judgment of acquittal to dismiss the manslaughter charges. The prosecution has rested its case and defense attorneys will begin presenting their case Monday morning, April 27, in courtroom 18D of the Justice Center.
The criminal case is a non-jury bench trial before O'Donnell, whom Brelo initially tried to have removed from the controversial criminal case for alleged bias, an affidavit of prejudice of which was denied by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor late last year.
Brelo, who is White, fired 49 of the 137 shots fired by a total of 13-non Black Cleveland cops who gunned down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams, 30, and Timothy Russell, 43, following a high speed car chase that began in downtown Cleveland and ended in a middle school parking lot in neighboring East Cleveland. He is currently suspended without pay pending the outcome of his trial.
The city of Cleveland last year settled a notorious wrongful death and police excessive force lawsuit for $3 million to be split between the families of the two victims.
Cleveland Civil Rights and Constitutional Attorney Terry Gilbert, the appointed lawyer for the estate of Russell, who is survived by a grown mentally ill son, said in a previous one-on-one interview with Cleveland Urban News.Com that money is not enough to appease the Cleveland community.
"The fight is just really beginning,"said Gilbert.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, who is White, told reporters last year during a press conference on the grand jury indictment relative to Brelo that his office did not recommend any charges to the grand jury against 12 of 13 police officers that escaped indictments, 11 White and one Hispanic. That posture has upset community activists.
"The neo- Nazi's won and it is unbelievable that only one police officer faces felony charges and the other 12 got away with killing two unarmed Black people," said community activist Pierre Nappier.
Brelo jumped aboard the hood of the 1979 Chevy Malibu driven by Russell and fired 49 shots through the windshield, though by then the car was stopped, and even McGinty admitted to reporters that neither Williams nor Russell, both of them homeless with substance abuse problems, posed any immediate threat.
No gun was found at the deadly scene.
Russell and Williams were killed in a fetal position in Russell's shot up car, Russell shot 23 times, and Williams, 24.
Also charged via county grand jury indictments were five White police supervisors, but on second degree misdemeanor charges of dereliction of duty. They have all pleaded not guilty and are sergeants Patricia Coleman, Randolph Daley, Jason Edens, Michael Donegan and Lt.Paul Wilson. And all of them are still employed and on the job.
All 12 Cleveland police officers that got off are still employed and on the job, and still face possible disciplinary charges, said Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams at a press conference after the grand jury indictment against Brelo came down last year.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
