Pictured are Cleveland police 137 shots fatal shooting victims Malissa Williams and Tim Russell (in sweat shirt)
CLEVELAND, Ohio- Community activists and the families of Cleveland police 137 shots shooting victims Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell will host the 2nd Anniversary of the 137 Shots Cleveland Police Shooting Rally and Vigil to remember Tim and Malissa and all like them subject to deadly force by the largely White Cleveland Police Department. The event will be held on Saturday Nov. 29 at 5 pm. and will begin with a march from Heritage Middle School in East Cleveland where the deadly shooting occurred the night of November 29, 2012. It will be followed by a vigil, where victims family members and community activists will speak, among others.
For more information contact Black on Black Crime at (216) 253-4070, the Imperial Women Coalition at (216) 659-0473, and Peace in the Hood at (216) 548-4043. Other activists groups organizing the activities include Puncture the Silence, Revolution Books, the Oppressed People's Nation, the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, and the Carl Stokes Brigade.
Members of both the Russell and Williams families will attend, a spokesman for the Williams family told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news.
"We will be there, including members of the Russell family and Malissa's mother," said Walter Jackson, an uncle of Malissa Williams, 30, who was gunned down by 13-non-Black Cleveland cops, along with Russell,43, as Cleveland police officers slung 137 bullets.
Jackson said that the families are also concerned with other Black people victimized by Cleveland police, including 37-year-old unarmed Black woman Tanisha Anderson, who was killed by police at her family home in police custody on Nov. 12.
"It is two young Black women gone to soon," said Jackson of the police killings of Anderson and his niece Malissa.
A 12-year-old Black boy, Tamir Rice, was shot and killed by Cleveland police on Nov 22 for sporting a toy pellet gun, and the list goes on.
Jackson said that the family is still grieving over Williams.
"I miss my niece Malissa," Jackson told Cleveland Urban News.Com. "And what bothers me is that nothing has changed, and Black people are still getting killed in Cleveland while the police go free."
The tragic incident involving Williams and Russell occurred following a high speed car chance that began in downtown Cleveland and ended in neighboring East Cleveland, a largely Black and impoverished Cleveland suburb, its first suburb, in fact.
Neither Williams nor Russell was wanted by the law and the car chase ensued, police claim, because of an alleged mistake that a gunshot was fired when it was allegedly a car backfiring.
The city of Cleveland has tentatively settled a notorious wrongful death and police excessive force case for $3 million for the two families to split the money, which must be approved by County Probate Court Judge Anthony Russo.
The lawyers will get their third-or-more too, two for the Williams family, and primarily one with standing for the estate of Russell, and who was appointed by the probate court.
A Cuyahoga County Grand Jury handed down an indictment on two counts of voluntary manslaughter against one of 13 non- Black Cleveland police officers that gunned down Williams and Russell, a celebrated tragedy that has heighten racial unrest in the predominantly Black major metropolitan city.
Prosecutors had sought a two-count murder indictment for Patrolman Michael Brelo, among other charges, but the grand jury opted for the lesser charge of manslaughter. The case is before Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell and no trial date has been set.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, who is White, told reporters during a press conference on the grand jury indictment relative to Brelo that his office did not recommend any charges to the grand jury against the 12 officers that escaped indictments, 11 White and one Hispanic. That posture has upset community activists who have protested and are demanding that another grand jury convene independent of what they say was prejudice by McGinty and his office. They also want federal charges as well as the firing of the 13 cops that did the shooting.
Brelo was the lone Cleveland police patrolman charged. He jumped aboard the hood of the 1979 Chevy Malibu driven by Russell and fired 49 shots through the windshield, though by then the car was stopped, and even McGinty admitted to reporters that neither Williams nor Russell posed any immediate threat.
No gun was found at the deadly scene.
Russell and Williams were killed in a fetal position in Russell's shot up car, Russell shot 23 times and Williams, 24.
Also charged by the county grand jury were five White police supervisors, but on second degree misdemeanor charges of dereliction of duty. They have all pleaded not guilty and are sergeants Patricia Coleman, Randolph Daley, Jason Edens, Michael Donegan and Lt.Paul Wilson
All 12 police officers that got off still face possible disciplinary charges, said Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams at a press conference after the grand jury indictment against Brelo came down.
Attorney General Mike DeWine released findings by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (BCI) in a comprehensive 290 page report where he laid blame on the administration of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and what he said are infrastructure problems in the Cleveland Police Department, a claim the mayor has publicly denied.
