By Kathy Wray Coleman, publisher, editor-n-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper(www.clevelandurbannews.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio-Community activists will protest today, Jan 28, at 6 pm behind Heritage Middle School in East Cleveland at Lee Road and Terrace Ave. over published comments to the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper last week by Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association President Jerry Follmer.
A veteran cop, Follmer told the Plain Dealer that the recent public announcement that the Cuyahoga County examiner allegedly found drugs in the system of shooting victims Malissa Williams and Timothy Ray Russell justifies the deadly shooting, though the official investigation by the City of East Cleveland and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, and an internal investigation by Cleveland officials are underway.
Family members of Williams said that they will attend also.
Williams, 30, and Russell, 43, both Black, were gunned down by a group of White Cleveland police officers on Nov 29, 2012.
Russell was driving the car that police say backfired in front of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center in Cleveland, causing some 30 police cars to chase him and Williams, a passenger, for more than 25 minutes until surrounding the car at Wymore and Terrace Avenues in East Cleveland and shooting 137 bullets at it, gangsta-style.
Neither was armed and no gun or gun residue was found at the scene of the shooting.
The celebrated shooting deaths have caused racial unrest in the Black community and calls by the Cleveland NAACP and Black leaders such as U.S. Rep. Marcia L. Fudge, a Warrensville Hts. Democrat, for an independent investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Follmer, who is White, has called the shooting a good shooting and his recent comments that Blacks can be gunned down and denied the opportunity to surrender to police if they allegedly have drugs in their system have outraged community activists, who say that greater Cleveland Black clergy need to stop singing and preaching so much and stand up on the controversial issue, and so do Cleveland and East Cleveland area Black elected officials.
"I love preaching and I love singing and city officials have given us much singing and much preaching," said Community Activist Art McKoy, founder of Black on Black Crime Inc. "They are trying to preach us and sing us to sleep concerning the 137 shots that killed Malissa Williams and Timothy Ray Russell and we need to stop preaching and come out swinging, and that is what we are going to do."
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, who was endorsed by the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association for his election to the seat last year and who took campaign money from the organization, will decide if a recommendation for felony murder charges against police via a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indictment will be made.
A former common pleas judge and assistant county prosecutor, McGinty is pro- police, and his record as a public servant reveals it.
McKoy can be reached at 216-253-4070.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473.
