By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black news venues
Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473
Pictured are Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (in beard), Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty (the Caucasian in red tie), and Cleveland NAACP President The Rev. Hilton Smith (the African-American in red tie)
CLEVELAND,Ohio- Cleveland area community activists groups have voted to picket Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Cleveland NAACP President The Rev. Hilton Smith, though Smith and Jackson can get a reprieve, activists said, if a meeting date is scheduled at an inner city forum to address their community-related concerns that is void of the typical police harassment and intimidation they sometimes bring with them. Those concerns include the deadly Cleveland police shootings of Malissa Williams,Tim Russell, Daniel Ficker and Kenneth Smith (AKA Rapper Kenn Ball), all of whom were unarmed, foreclosure fraud, judicial impropriety, orchestrated unemployment of Black people and Black contractors, and police negligence around the abduction, rape and murder of women and children across racial lines. (For more information contact Black on Black Crime Inc. at 216-253-4070, The Task Force for Community Mobilization at 216-538-4043 and The Imperial Women at 216-659-0473).
McGinty is under fire for refusing to recuse himself and inturn seek a special prosecutor after taking campaign monies and an endorsement last year from the Cleveland police union relative to his successful bid for Cuyahoga County prosecutor and then refusing to push a county grand jury indictment of a group of Cleveland police officers, 12 White and 1 Hispanic, that gunned down Williams and Russell with an unprecedented 137 bullets on Nov. 29 following a car chase from downtown Cleveland that ended in neighboring East Cleveland. Also, employees of his office like Lily Miller are accused of calling Blacks nigger and then defaming community activists that complain with McGinty's blessing with lies on the Internet and through emails sent on company time in alleged violation of state law. (Editor's Note: The vote to picket McGinty was taken two weeks ago at a Black on Black Crime meeting that included activists groups of Imperial Women, The Carl Stokes Brigade, The Oppressed People's Nation, The Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, The People's Forum, People for The Imperial Act, Survivors/Victims of Tragedy, and The Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network. Also there were members of The Task Force for Community Mobilization, a grassroots group led by Community Activist Khalid Samad that has a petition of over 1,300 signatures to date for McGinty's recusal in the Williams-Russell case).
Activists voted at a meeting on Thursday to ask Jackson to meet with them to explain why police have not been charged relative to the Williams-Russell shooting and other shootings of unarmed people like Kenneth Smith and Daniel Ficker They are also upset about alleged impropriety around the rape and murder in March of Christine Malone, and police harassment of Imperial Women members at peaceful protests. Activists say they also will discuss the failure of police and the Jackson administration to implement the 27 recommendations issued by the mayor's three-member commission. That commission, that does not include community activists, was formed in 2009 around the Imperial Avenue Murders of 11 Black women on Imperial Ave by convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell.
Two other pickets by Imperial Women .at the mayor's home in the city's Central Neighborhood, both held in the last four years, dealt with the Imperial Avenue Murders.
Rev Smith took the helm as Cleveland NAACP president this year and according to activists is doing what White folks and some sellout greater Cleveland Black elected officials are telling him to do , and allegedly to the detriment of the Black community. Activists, many of whom are dues paying members of the organization, want a meeting with Smith as repeatedly promised, regular committee meetings, and for the group to stand for jobs, and against the gunning down of unarmed innocent people by Cleveland police, documented Cuyahoga County foreclosure fraud, judicial impropriety and the abduction, rape and murders of women and children. (Editors Note: The latter include Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight, the 11 Imperial Ave. murdered women and Malone).
Cleveland Urban News.Com , copyright 2012
