From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News.Com, and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and newspaper blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473 (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio-BELOW IS A RE-PRINT OF A CALL AND POST NEWSPAPER EDITORIAL THAT IS ALSO ON THE STANDS AND IN STORES THIS WEEK
A fleeting passage of time. Two ticks of a second. Pull out a stop watch. Count “one (1,000) – two (1,000).” Then imagine … BANG! Your child is dead.
The blink of an eye was all the time it took for a Cleveland police officer to engage and gun down a 12-year-old child playing in the park. After watching the video recording that shows the killing of Tamir Rice at Cudell Park, the community as a collective was both saddened and outraged.
As a result, the community is not only calling for the resignation of Executive Assistant Marty Flask and Safety Director Michael McGrath, but it has also been recognized that if Mayor Frank Jackson insists on supporting this blatantly racist, brutal and unconstitutional treatment of Black people at the hands of the Cleveland Police Department, then he too will have to follow suit. We stand behind the community.
It defies logic and common sense that the mayor would continue to support this practice in spite of Attorney General Eric Holder’s findings that it is illegal and unconstitutional. Jackson is standing by a horribly broken policy and structure. And this is certainly not the first time. The amount of money that this city has quietly paid out in lawsuits behind the CPD is staggering.
Yes, Mayor Jackson is a nice, decent man. But now is not the time to play nice. This paper has supported the mayor throughout his full tenure as leader of the city of Cleveland. Often times, we have even supported him when his actions and non-actions have not always been for the benefit and well-being of Black people in Cleveland, but this is as far as we can go.
Time and again, we gave Mayor Jackson the benefit of the doubt but, now, it has become painfully evident that we will not, and cannot, stand by without stating the obvious. Mayor Jackson has turned a blind eye to the people who elected him. But, unlike Pontius Pilate, Mayor Jackson cannot wash this blood off his hands.
It was a validation of fact that the Attorney General of the United States and the Department of Justice (DOJ) determined that based on their own investigation there is a problem in the CPD. Unfortunately, we had the dead bodies, broken bones and black eyes, at the hands of the CPD, to have already known this to be true.
The DOJ’s findings were as clear as that little boy’s blood in the street in concluding that they believe that the CPD “engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution” and that “structural and systemic deficiencies and practices – including insufficient accountability, inadequate training and equipment, ineffective policies and inadequate engagement with the community – contribute to CPD’s use of unreasonable force.”
What the DOJ’s 59-page report spells out is that this isn’t just a few bad cops; this is a bad system with bad leadership. These bad cops are beating Black people in the head and killing us, because it is allowed to happen from the top down. And top down means McGrath, Flask and yes, even Mayor Jackson.
