By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Tel: (216) 659-0473 Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio-Greater Cleveland community activists and victims families and their attorneys, led by Oppressed People's Nation Chairman Ernie Smith, Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network Leader Don Bryant, Imperial Women Coalition Leader Kathy Wray Coleman, and Black on Black Crime Founder Art McKoy, will hold a 'Stop Police Brutality Rally' on Tuesday, July 1 at 5:30 pm in the parking lot at Heritage Middle School at 14410 Terrace Road in East Cleveland. Organizers said that the rally is around police brutality and the tragedy of the Cleveland police 137 shots shooting a year and a half ago on Nov 29, 2012 of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams, 30, and Tim Russell, 43, (pictured) by 13 non-Black Cleveland cops.
For more information call Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network President Don Bryant at (216) 772-6788, Imperial Women Coalition Leader Kathy Wray Coleman at (216) 659-0473, and Black on Black Crime Founder Art McKoy at (216) 253-4070.
The 23 minute high speed police car chase that began in downtown Cleveland left Williams and Russell dead at the scene at Heritage Middle School, near the intersection of Lee and Terrace Roads, in East Cleveland. The 1979 Chevy Malibu that Russell was driving, where Williams was a passenger, was reportedly cornered by police and their pistils, and shot at a record 137 times like a scene in a Hollywood movie. Michael Brelo, the only one of the 13 police officers charged earlier this month by a Cuyahoga County Grand jury, jumped aboard the hood of the car and fired 49 shots through the front windshield. He faces two counts of voluntary manslaughter, which carries three to 10 years in prison on each count.
Six police supervisors, five sergeants and one lieutenant, all of them White, face second degree misdemeanor charges of dereliction of duty for their roles in the deadly tragedy, one that has heightened racial unrest in the largely Black city of Cleveland.
Police say they thought Russell pointed a gun at one of the officers, but did not make such claim to dispatchers. And activists say that since no gun were found and even had they been shot at, that they should have gone back to the police station and made a police report, and to calm down. They want police to stop chasing people in haste and then killing them unnecessarily.
Activists said that they will make demands, or requests, at the rally, and have invited the Cleveland NAACP and others to join them on the journey for justice for Malissa and Tim, and all like them. Cleveland NAACP President The Rev Hilton Smith has said that he will notify activists this week of his availability of the rally.
Activists groups include Black on Black Crime, Peace in the Hood, The Carl Stokes Brigade, The Imperial Women Coalition, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, The Oppressed People's Nation, The Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, The Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, Sister to Sister, The Task Force for Community Mobilization, The People's Forum, Survivors/Victims of Tragedy, The Joaquin Hicks Real People's Movement, People for the Imperial Act, The Women's Federation, and Revolution Books.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
