Pictured are embattled Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty and 12-year-old Cleveland police fatal shooting victim Tamir Rice
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CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-Greater Cleveland grassroots community activists are again calling for embattled Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, who was ousted in the March Democratic primary by sole opponent Michael O'Malley, to resign before his term is up in January for alleged malfeasance in office and likely violations of the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility. (Editor's note. No Independent and no Republican ran in the race for county prosecutor this year).
"Tim McGinty has got to go, and he needs to go immediately and without question," said community activist Al Porter of Cleveland, president of the local grassroots group Black on Black Crime Inc. and a member of the Black Man's Army.
Activists also want a special prosecutor on all cases before the grand jury involving police , as either accusers or those subject to grand jury proceedings themselves, since the Tamir Rice debacle, and a state law that permits people facing indictments on criminal charges the due process opportunity to testify before the grand jury like police.
And some activists want McGinty removed from office and himself indicted on public corruption charges, including documented grand jury tampering in cooperation with some Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judges, some 34 of whom occupy the the general division common pleas court that serves Ohio's largest county, a county that includes the city of Cleveland and is roughly 29 percent Black.
At the core of McGinty's humiliating demise is his mishandling of grand jury proceedings relative to the Cleveland police killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, and the acquittal last year by Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell of Michael Brelo, a since fired Cleveland cop who gunned down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012 while slinging 49 bullets. (Editor's note: Twelve other non- Black Cleveland cops, who together fired the remaining 137 shots, escaped grand jury indictments per McGinty's recommendation to the largely White grand jury).
McGinty has angered the Black community, and was afraid to campaign in Black areas of Cleveland after he shielded the the two White police officers involved in the Rice's shooting death, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garner, from indictments. He did this in part by handpicking law enforcement experts to testify for police before the grand jury, reports he also made public in violation of state grand jury laws.
Other Cleveland police deadly force cases where police have escaped prosecution in the last three years or more with McGinty's help include Brandon Jones, rapper Kenneth Smith, Danielle Ficker, and Tanisha Anderson.
Anderson's case was removed from his purview due to a conflict of interest and handed to Ohio Attorney General Mike Dewine.
Activists want O'Malley to assume the prosecutor job immediately, given the illegalities under McGinty's leadership, including tainting grand juries for police and against the Black community.
"Our demand for Mr. McGinty to resign and for a special prosecutor, particularly on all police cases in Cleveland and in the suburbs, is not because he lost reelection with our help, but because of what has transpired while he has been in office," said Porter.
A former common pleas judge and county prosecutor since 2012, McGinty, public records show, is parading racist and corrupt greater Cleveland White cops before grand juries and getting indictments in secret against his enemies, and Blacks who generally are, at his insistence, denied an opportunity to testify before the grand jury in the bogus cases. And this is by design, sources said.
"He should have been gone," said longtime community activist Ada Averyhart, 81 and of Cleveland. "We want this addressed by the Ohio State Legislature and under the court-monitored consent decree for police reforms between the city of Cleveland and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Averyhart said that McGinty, who is White, gets away with his malfeasance because Black leaders and elected officials will not stand up for the community in the manner necessary to deal with the problem, and other legal system problems.
An activist speaking on condition of anonymity said that McGinty is "racist, corrupt and mentally unhinged."
Data also show that Blacks are disproportionately and sometimes maliciously indicted in Cuyahoga County, and often with McGinty's help.
He has allegedly promised police across the county that he will help them get as many erroneous indictments as possible before he leaves office, an issue that activists say needs to be legally dealt with, and right away.
His enemies, say sources, mainly Blacks that opposed him for reelection or otherwise, are the prime targets.
A former first assistant county prosecutor and former Cleveland councilman O'Malley quit his job as Parma safety director to campaign against McGinty and has promised to do right by the Black community and others.
In the Tamir Rice case in particular, the county prosecutor violated protocol, and the law, says 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, a licensed attorney who supported O'Malley for prosecutor with help from Cleveland NAACP President Michael Nelson Sr, Black activists, and Black Cleveland area clergy led by the Rev. Eugene Ward.
Pierre Napper, 74 and a Maple Heights resident, and Valerie Robinson, 78 and a resident of Cleveland Heights, said also that McGinty should resign, with Nappier adding that "McGinty's continuance as a prosecutor is an indictment against the Black community."
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