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 newspapers

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473

Pictured above (with White shirt collar) is Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell, who chairs Cleveland City Council's safety committee, and who introduced legislation for 42 more red light traffic ticket cameras that city council passed last week, most on the majority Black east side of the city. Conwell is also under fire for being quiet about no Blacks on Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's law enforcement leadership team, the rape and murders of Black women, and the gunning down of unarmed Blacks and others by Cleveland police.  Pictured next to Conwell and wearing a beard is Mayor Frank Jackson, who allegedly pushed Conwell to introduce the legislation for more traffic cameras in the city's Black community after some White west side council persons said no about an abundance of more cameras in their communities.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Community activists protested against Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and city council at E. 124th St and Superior Ave. in Cleveland Friday afternoon in response to a disproportionate abundance of red light traffic ticket cameras on the predominantly Black east side of the majority Black major metropolitan city. They say it is  unconstitutional, particularly since more than 69 percent of the traffic tickets are issued to Black people, and that the cameras, as situated throughout the city, and more so in areas where Blacks reside, represent racial profiling and the arbitrary and capricious abuse of power against the Black community by Jackson, the City of Cleveland, and Cleveland City Council. (Editor's Note: Read more at the end of this article for the 42 locations where more traffic cameras will go up at street intersections in Cleveland as a result of legislation passed by Cleveland City Council last week).

While the Ohio Supreme Court has said that traffic cameras in Ohio are legal under the Ohio Constitution, no litigation has been pursued under the legal argument that when the cameras are disproportionately situated in the Black community it is an unconstitutional violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment since Black people are members of a protected class. Activists say that these kinds of questions can be addressed through federal lawsuits filed on behalf of impacted Blacks and their families by the NAACP and that the Cleveland Chapter NAACP should take on these kinds of cases regardless of any relationship it might have with the city's Black mayor. Mayor Jackson, though, also controls the city schools under state law, and the careers and purse strings of some very powerful people.

"We have to protest on this,'" said Community Activist Art McKoy, who leads Black on Black Crime Inc and who led the rally on Friday at the intersection where one of traffic cameras will soon go up, a protest attended by various groups including the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, which is led by Community Activist Don Bryant.

Activists said that they will discuss the issue, among others, at 6 pm forum with Cleveland Mayoral Candidate Ken Lanci on Thursday, May 30, at Lil Africa in Cleveland, 6816 Superior Ave. For more information on the event contact Imperial Women at 216-659-0473.

Next to Boston Cleveland is the second most segregated city among major metropolitan cities nationwide. It is roughly 58 percent Black and is divided along racial lines by the Cuyahoga River with Blacks primarily residing on the east side and Whites dominating the west side of town.

Currently the cameras that take snap shops of alleged speeders for tickets at $125 an episode are at 51 Cleveland intersections, 35 on the east side and 16 on the west side of the city. But Jackson and a majority of the nine Blacks on the 18 member city council want a disproportionate number of more cameras on the east side to stop crime they say, though opponents say it is really nothing but a way to get more money by spy techniques and that the cameras are a cover up for police allegedly not doing their jobs.

The west side council persons, all of whom are White, balked, so in order to meet the revenue criteria that the cameras will likely bring to the city coffers more cameras, which amounts to more money, were allegedly slated by Jackson, who is Black,  and Cleveland City Council President Martin Sweeney, who is White,  for the east side.

Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell, who chairs city council's safety committee and has not spoken out against no Blacks on the mayor's law enforcement leadership team, the  rapes and murders of Black women, and the gunning down by police of unarmed Black people in droves, introduced new legislation for the 42 new traffic cameras, 26 on the east side and only 16 on the west side. And this is addition to the 51 already in place that target the Black community.

That proposed legislation is now a city ordinance or city law as 15 council members, enough out of the 18 for a majority, passed  it at a city council meeting last week.

Read below to find the intersections of the 42 more traffic cameras that Cleveland City Council voted on last week to erect at intersections throughout the city, a city that CNN reports as having double the crime rate of other major American cities.

Woodland Ave at E. 55th St.

Lakeview Road and Superior Avenue

East 105th Street and Superior Avenue

East 124th Street and Superior Avenue

East 156th Street and Waterloo Road

Neff Road at East 185th Street

East 55th Street at Broadway

Orange Avenue at East 30th Street

Chester Avenue at East 105th Street

St. Clair Avenue at East 152nd Street

Kinsman Road at East 93rd Street

Lee Road at Miles Road

Stokes Boulevard at Cedar Avenue

West 25th Street at Clark Avenue

West 65th Street at Clark Avenue

I-490 at East 55th Street

Pearl Road at Denison Avenue

Broadview Road at Brookpark Road

St. Clair Avenue at East 105th Street

Woodland Avenue at East 30th Street

Lorain Avenue at West 65th Street

Broadview Road at Spring Road

St. Clair Avenue at East 55th Street

Puritas Avenue at West 150th Street

Martin Luther King Jr. Drive at East 105th Street