Pictured is 12-year-old Tamir Rice
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com). Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com
CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio -The city of Cleveland has delayed a demolition scheduled for May 2 of the gazebo at the Cudell Recreation Center on the city's largely White west side where 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was Black, was gunned down in late 2014 by an anxious White Cleveland cop.
The city has a history of demolishing momentum's surrounding high-profile cases of murder, rape or abduction that it seeks to forget about, cases where the victims are either women or children.
In 2011 the city demolished the east side home on Imperial Avenue where convicted serial killer and death row inmate Anthony Sowell murdered 11 Black women and raped several others that escaped his wrath. And three years ago city officials tore down the home on Seymour Avenue on the city's west side where convicted child rapist Ariel Castro, who hanged himself in prison, held Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight and Amanda Berry captive for a decade until they were rescued in 2013. (Editor's note: Six of the 11 women murdered on Imperial Avenue were killed by Sowell after police, in 2008, released him from custody on a rape complaint. He was arrested again in 2009 after killing the remainder of the 11 Black women).
The city attempted to change the name of Imperial Avenue where Sowell did his raping and murdering but backed off after the Imperial Women Coalition, led by activist Kathy Wray Coleman, rightfully objected.
Coleman asked, via comments she made for a story published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper on the slated street name change, if city officials intend to "change the name of every street in the city where women are raped or murdered."
This time, however, the city allegedly met opposition, mainly due to Rice's mother, Samira Rice, a strong advocate for the memory of her son, and a community activist in her own right. And this is if city officials are being honest on the controversial issue as to the stance that Rice's family is purportedly against the demolition.
"The demolition has been delayed per the request of the family," a city official told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper.
Coleman and some other activists have said that they support the wishes, one way or another, of Tamir's family and the community.
"The Imperial Women Coalition and some other greater Cleveland activists support tearing the gazebo down if that is what Tamir Rice's mother and the community want," said Coleman. "If Ms. Rice, and not her attorneys, and the community want otherwise, we back that decision."
Coleman said that the community needs to remember police malfeasance in the Rice case and cases involving rape and murder of women and children, including the Imperial Avenue Murders, and that abolishing any existence of the activity is insensitive and unethical.
The Washington-based Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture has also asked the city of Cleveland to delay the demolition.for at least 60 days.
Last week the city settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Rice family for $6 million.
During an interview last week after the settlement Rice family attorney Subodh Chandra told Cleveland Urban News.Com that police violence against communities of color, locally, statewide and nationally, is at an all time high and that Tamir's family hope's that his tragic death will bring necessary changes.
"It is the Rice's family's sincere hope that Tamir's death will stimulate a movement for genuine change," said Chandra.
Law Director Barbara Langhenry, who is White, has reportedly said that the museum is in talks with Black Lives Matter concerning options for preserving the gazebo, given its importance to African-American history.
Exactly who the Black Lives Matter participants are is unknown, particularly since greater Cleveland community activists who led the charge for justice relative to the celebrated shooting death have not been consulted, sources said.
Langhenry has also allegedly said that she is concerned about monies as to preserving the artifact, which activists say "is ludicrous."
A source said that the demolition was allegedly agreed to by Rice family attorneys as a part of the lawsuit settlement.
Tamir was gunned down in less than two seconds on Nov. 22, 2014 when officer Loehmann and his partner, veteran police officer Frank Garmback, responding to a foiled 911 call, pulled into the park and recreation center where the child was toting a toy gun.
A county grand jury declined to indict the officers in December per the recommendation of Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, whom Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, other Black leaders and community activists have accused of arbitrarily tainting the grand jury process in favor of police.
Led by Fudge and the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, with support from local Black community activists and others, McGinty, who is White, lost reelection in the March Democratic primary to Michael O'Malley, a former assistant county prosecutor and Parma safety director.
www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com). Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com
