Pictured are Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (wearing beard) and former city councilman Zack Reed. At right a group of some 15 largely White activists picket the home of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson on Aug. 14
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CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- Former Cleveland councilman Zack Reed spoke to Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com in detail during a one-on-one interview Friday, hours after a group of some 15 young, and practically all White activists, led by the unfamiliar activist group the Sunshine Movement, picketed the home of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (Editor's note: Read further down in the article for Reed's comments).
Mainstream media outlets Cleveland.com, which is the online affiliate of the Plain Dealer, and Cleveland television channels Fox 8 News and News 5 Cleveland, as well as alternative news enues such as Ideastream and Scene Magazine, were among the media that covered the picket.
Dubbed "Wake-up Mayor Jackson" the protest began outside of the mayor's home in the Central neighborhood on the city's majority Black east side at 6 am in what the young activists said was a wake-up call regarding the mayor's lackadaisical approach to social ills in the city and his position against calls to defund the police.
Both the mayor and Police Chief Calvin Williams have publicly gone against the demands by activists to break up the police department and reallocate police funds to neighborhoods.
Activists wore masks and chanted and sung songs in front of the mayor's home, and they gave speeches, the picket one of many occurring nationwide in general following the May 25 Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed Black man, one of so many Blacks who have fallen victim to excessive force by police across the country.
"No Justice No Sleep," a sign read that activists held up at the protest.
Activists said that Jackson, a four-term Black Democratic mayor, has not done enough to minimize police abuse in the largely Black major American city.
"Jackson is sleeping through the many crises we are facing in this moment," they said in a press release.
Other Blacks said the mainstream media coverage of the protest on Jackson's home with so few White activists there is suspect and racist, and that Whites, like crooked judges, other elected officials, and prosecutors who do wrong, and corrupt White cops too, are often protected by Cleveland's mainstream media.
"We have had so many killings of young Black men in the last two weeks with no media in sight at the vigils and it is astounding to learn that media covered 15 White young people who likely do not live on the east side in front of our mayor's home as he works to make Cleveland a better city for all people," said Elaine Gohlstin, a community activist of 40 years and the president of the Black Women's PAC of greater Cleveland.
Activist Mary Seawright, who owns and manages Seawright Enterprises in Cleveland's Fairfax neighborhood in Ward 6, said that "while the mayor needs to stop supporting police who do wrong by Black people, I have a problem with the media targeting him as a Black man and leaving Whites alone."
Reed had an altogether different take on the matter.
A long time former city councilman who did not seek reelection in order to run for mayor against Jackson, a four-term Black mayor, Reed lost a non-partisan mayoral runoff to Jackson in 2017 and then snagged a job as a statewide minority affairs coordinator with Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican.
His campaign platform for mayor in 2017 was "Safety First," which was coupled with his demand for more officers on the streets and in city neighborhoods, something that the new Civil Rights Movement that has taken off since Floyd's murder by police opposes.
"I don't care if they picket the mayor's home," said Reed, "the question is what is the mayor going to do about crime in the city?"
He said he cannot support defunding the police because he is not clear on the concept.
"What do activists mean by defunding the police and I would love to meet with them to discuss the issue," said Reed, who is Black and was first elected to city council in 1999, ultimately representing the Mt Pleasant, Union-Miles and Mill Creek Falls neighborhoods.
He would not confirm or deny whether he will make another run for mayor in 2021, and Jackson will not rule out a run either.
Sources say that Jackson will likely run for a fifth term next year and that Reed will try to unseat him, again.
A Democrat like Jackson and all 17 members of city council, Reed said the city is on its way to a historic number of homicides this year, beyond the 101 current homicides to likely more that 150 killings by the end of December.
"Cleveland averages about 10 homicides a month," said Reed, "and with nearly four more months to go this year we should expect a record number of homicides for 2021."
Reed said that Jackson needs "to come up with a a plan to deal with the violence in the city."
Given Cleveland's history of excessive force killings against Blacks, including Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams in 2012, and 12-year-old Tamir Rice and Tanisha Anderson in 2014, and a pending consent decree implemented in 2015 with the U.S. Department of Justice for police reforms, yesterday's protest against the mayor was not at all surprising, sources have said.
Asked his views on excessive force by Cleveland police, Reed said that police who do wrong should be "reprimanded, fired or prosecuted."
But he also said that too often people expect police officers to be all things to all people.
They expect police to independently solve, social, societal and psychological ills," said Reed. "And that is unrealistic."
Cleveland, like a host of other major urban cities, is experiencing heightened crime in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic that has crippled the nation and has had its biggest impact on the Black community, which has been disproportionately affected.
Last month President Donald Trump, with support from Mayor Jackson and Police Chief Williams, who is Black, announced that Cleveland is among some 11 cities that federal troops will monitor behind the increase in the crime rate and May 30 riots in the downtown section of the city during protest for justice for George Floyd,
The initiative, entitled "Operation Legend" includes, in addition to Cleveland, the cities of Portland and Chicago, New York, Albuquerque, Kansas City, Detroit and Milwaukee, actions in Portland and Chicago drawing criticism for the harassment by federal troops of innocent activists and protesters.
Black activists have picketed over federal troops coming into Cleveland as the media hardly covered the protest to allegedly protect the president as he continues to buy mainstream media advertisement as the November general election nears, Trump to square off with Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who served as vice president under former president Barack Obama, 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.
