By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher,
editor-in-chief. A former biology teacher with no felony record, Coleman is a legal, political and investigative reporter who trained at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio for 17 years, covering the 2008 presidential election with 26 articles, an election that saw Barack Obama elected the nation's first Black president
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor, has named former chief city prosecutor Karrie Howard, currently the interim public safety director, to replace retiring public safety director Mike McGrath.
McGrath quit last week amid controversy with Jackson as to various complaints by civilians and some Black east side city councilmen, sources say, including that the city's police force has a dearth of minority cops and that the current police chief, Calvin Williams, who is Black, and the city's law enforcement upper echelon, hastened by a racist police union, have done little to recruit Blacks to the department.
Public records reveal that Cleveland's police force is 59 percent White and roughly 22 percent Black though the major American city is more that 58 percent Black.
Howard's swearing in Friday by Jackson during a brief ceremony at City Hall follows riots on May 30 in downtown Cleveland that broke out during the justice for George Floyd protest in which media and some council members accused police and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office of being completely unprepared.
Howard, who is Black, joins Jackson's cabinet and steps up as the city's new public safety director as the city and the U.S. Department of Justice have been parties since 2015 to a consent decree for police reforms that follows a string of questionable excessive force killings by police since 2012 of unarmed Black people, including Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012 and Tanisha Anderson and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014, the year McGrath was promoted from police chief to public safety director.
Howard, 43, lost a bid for the common pleas general division bench of Cuyahoga County in 2018.
He is a former assistant U.S. district attorney and veteran of the Marine Corps.
McGrath is White and joined the police department in 1981 as a patrolman.
He was chief of police when some 13 non-Black Cleveland cops, shooting 137 bullets, gunned down the unarmed Russell and Williams in November of 2012 following a high speed car chase from Cleveland to neighboring East Cleveland, an excessive force killing of the duo that, like that of Rice and so many others, drew citywide protests and calls for systemic changes in the city's police department.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog, also the most read in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com
