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. Coleman is a 22-year political, legal and investigative journalist who trained for 17 years, and under six different editors, at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM- CLEVELAND, Ohio-Community activists and the family of Sherita Johnson, the pregnant 41-year-old woman who was shot and killed in the driveway of a house near East 92nd Street and Wade Park Avenue in Cleveland last year, will hold a remembrance vigil on Saturday, Nov 21., the first anniversary of her murder, and of the four other victims shot and killed inside the home on the city's east side.
Johnson was seven months pregnant at the time of her death.
Two of the other four murder victims were Johnson's unborn child, and her teen-age son. ( Editor's note: The address of the vigil is 1443 East 92nd Street and Wade Park on Cleveland's east side).
(Contact persons for the vigil are Lavitta Murray of the Million Women March Cleveland and the Imperial Women Coalition at (216) 410-9830, Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women Coalition and Cleveland Urban News.Com at (216) 659-0473, and Art McKoy of Black on Black Crime Inc and the Black Man's Army at (216) 253-4070).
Speakers in general include Black elected officials, Black clergy, community activists, and family members of the victims.
Organizers have asked that people bring candles for the vigil.
Johnson's mother Pat, who is noticeably strong and obviously community oriented, and who will speak at the event, told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news, that "we are sick of the Black on Black crime against our children, and I want it to stop."
State Rep. Bill Patmon, a Cleveland Democrat, also accepted an invitation to speak and said that he will not hold back.
"I will speak and I have a strong message to relay," said Patmon, a former city councilmen who routinely supports Black women activists and rallies with them relative to heightened rape and murder of Black and other women in greater Cleveland.
Pastor Adrian Carter, whose 25-year-old daughter Arrion Smiley was shot and killed last September in Cleveland Heights, a Cleveland suburb, is also a key speaker.
Rapper ET will perform as will the Burto and the Boys production team, organizers said.
Community activists said that murder after murder of innocent Black women and children in greater Cleveland is hurting the Black community.
"We are tired of Black women and children getting killed, and of racism, sexism and police killings and other brutality, " said activist Lavitta Murray.
Activist groups include the Million Women March Cleveland, the Imperial Women Coalition, Black on Black Crime Inc, the Black Man's Army, Peace in the Hood, and the Carl Stokes Brigade.
"We will be there," said Art McKoy, a founding member of Black on Black Crime and the Black Man's Army.
Johnson's 17-year-old son, Ja’rio Taylor, his friend, 17-year-old Shaylona Williams, and her mother Pat's boyfriend, 60-year-old Lemon Bryant, were found dead in the home. Her 9-year-old daughter survived a bullet to the chest, and another child, her 2-year-old son, was unharmed.
James E. Sparks Henderson, 19, has been charged with five counts of aggravated murder and sits in the county jail on a $7.5 million bond. He has pleaded not guilty and is represented by local defense attorney Rufus Sims, one of the attorneys of convicted serial killer and death row inmate Anthony Sowell, who murdered 11 Black women and raped three others at his since demolished home on Imperial Avenue, also on the city's east side.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty said during a press conference on 19-year-old Henderson, now a locally infamous suspect of the tragic five E. 92nd St murders, and an admitted friend of Johnson's murdered son Ja'rio , that he is admitted to the murders. And that he even ate a meal at the home after he callously shot and killed his five victims.
Prosecutors are not pursuing the death penalty, with no reason given.
Police and McGinty say that shell casings and DNA allegedly link Henderson, who has pleaded not guilty, to the gruesome crime. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
