CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland City Council plans to adopt legislation proposed by Councilman Anthony Brancatelli that would require masks in public and at public places in Cleveland, potential legislation supported by Mayor Frank Jackson that, if passed by the diverse 17-member city council, would make Cleveland among some other major cities in Ohio, including  Dayton and Columbus, that have already passed such unprecedented ordinances.

Children 2-years-old and under, and people with medical conditions are exempt.

Ohio, just this week, reported more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases, the most since April.

The legislation in Cleveland, which Brancatelli, a White councilman, said will be introduced at the next city council meeting on July 15, comes as the coronavirus is sweeping the nation via a second spike in confirmed cases and deaths.

Several Cleveland community activists say they oppose any such ordinance as overly intrusive and a violation of privacy rights as well as an invitation for Cleveland police to target Black men and boys  who are disproportionately killed by them, and often erroneously by way of excessive force.

In short, activists say the proposed ordinance is nothing more than racial profiling, Cleveland a largely Black major American city of some 385,000 people that is roughly 60 percent Black.

"I oppose it because it is nothing more to me than stop-and- frisk and we will picket if necessary on this issue," said longtime activist Alfred Porter Jr., who leads the greater Cleveland activist group Black on Black Crime Inc.

Stop-and-frisk, commonly known for its implementation and fallout effects in New York City, is the practice of police  routinely detaining, questioning, and at times searching civilians and suspects on the street for weapons and other contraband, and often without probable cause or reasonable suspicion.

Activists said that even if police intrusion were narrowed as to the proposed city ordinance it is still unconstitutional, they believe, and on several other grounds.

"It is a racial profiling measure that places Black and other women at risk for harassment by police and many any if not all Cleveland activists oppose mandating masks outside in public areas in Cleveland as it would violate privacy rights and would be overly invasive and intrusive, and thus unconstitutional," said Black Cleveland activist Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads Imperial Women Coalition and is a key organizer of Women's March Cleveland and International Women's Day March Cleveland.

Coleman said that while activists suggest that people wear masks in public, any such ordinance in Cleveland "would be selective and would open the door for police to gun down Blacks with impunity saying the incident occurred over a conflict of a Black person not wearing a mask."

It would also, said Coleman, give police and politicians an  arbitrary excuse to interrupt free speech protests in Cleveland.

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

Cuyahoga County Council has not passed any such ordinance and neither  has any largely White Cleveland suburb, leading activists to believe that the intent is to target poor black cities like Cleveland while leaving Whites in Cleveland suburbs alone on the intrusive measure.

Cleveland City Council has eight Black council persons, eight White, and one Hispanic, west side freshman councilwoman Jasmine Santa, who is likable but has yet to rock the boat on any major issue, like most of city council, five of them elected in the last cycle, and all of them, along with four-term Black mayor Jackson, up for reelection n 2021.

How police officers will handle any mandated requirement for such masks remains to be seen as racial tensions remain high behind the Minneapolis police killing in May of unarmed Black man George Floyd, and the shooting death  in March by Louisville  Metro police of Breonna Taylor, Taylor also Black like Floyd.

Riots have broken out in cities nationwide behind Floyd's killing, including in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, Atlanta, Los Angeles Oakland and Minneapolis itself.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com