Pictured are 137 shots unarmed Cleveland police fatal shooting victim Malissa Williams and 137 shots unarmed Cleveland police fatal shooting victim Timothy Russell.
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CLEVELAND, Ohio- Led by area grassroots activist groups Imperial Women Coalition and Black on Black Crime Inc., the community will host the anniversary rally and march relative to the 137 shots Cleveland police shooting deaths of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell, an open-to-the public event that will be held on Sat, Nov. 28, 2020 from 1-pm-3-pm ET in the parking lot of Heritage Middle School at 14410 Terrace Road (For more information call co-organizer Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women Coalition at 216-659-0473. Masks and social distancing required by city ordinance)
Organizers said that there will be a silent medication moment to remember Williams' mother, Martha Williams, 59, who passed away on Nov. 15, just two weeks before the scheduled anniversary event.
Speakers include community activists and family members of Blacks people erroneously gunned down by Cleveland and greater Cleveland cops and other law enforcement types, including members of the Malissa Williams family.
Cleveland and East Cleveland elected officials are also slated to speak, including council persons concerned about excessive force in their communities.
Community activists generally protest annually on Nov 29, the anniversary date of the killings that occurred the night of Nov 29, 2012, activists this year choosing to hold the event on Nov, 28 rather than Nov 29 because the 28th is a Saturday.
On that deadly November night ,a White cop, according to public records, claims he mistook Russell's 1979 Chevy Malibu Classic backfiring near the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland and began pursuit of the homeless couple, also radioing the dispatch to call for backup, which came in droves, precautionary measures be damned.
Some 276 patrol officers were working the night of the high speed 22 min. chase that ended in the Heritage Middle School parking lot in neighboring and impoverished East Cleveland, a Cleveland suburb, Williams and Russell chased by some 64 patrol cars, and literally fleeing for their lives.
The city later settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $3 million that was split between the families of the two victims, Russell leaving behind a grown disabled son.
Five of the six officers fired for their roles in the shooting had their jobs reinstated in 2017 by an arbitrator and are Michael Farley, Erin O'Donnell, Christopher Ereg, Wilfredo Diaz, and Brian Sabolik.
The sixth officer, officer Brelo, was not reinstated after he was fired bearly a year after his acquittal in May of 2015 on two counts of voluntary manslaughter in a bench trial before Democratic Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell, an acquittal that brought about community protests and some 71 arrests, mainly for minor infractions with police, though a few protesters faced felony charges.
Former county prosecutor Tim McGinty, criticized for scheming and preventing felony indictments against the cops at issue, and also protecting the rookie cop that, in 2014, shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, was voted out of office in 2016 in favor of fellow Democrat and current county prosecutor Mike O'Malley.
The celebrated 137 shots shooting fiasco is the impetus for a court-monitored consent decree for police reforms with the city of Cleveland and the U.S. Department of Justice, it along with so many other excessive force police killings in Cleveland of unarmed Blacks including 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Brandon Jones, rapper Kenneth Smith and Tanisha Anderson.
