Pictured are U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder ( in blue suit and blue tie),  Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell ( in grey suit and  bright patterned tie), Cleveland NAACP President the Rev Hilton Smith ( in Black suit and purple tie), and the Rev Dr. E. Theophilis Caviness, first vice president of the Cleveland NAACP and executive director of the greater Cleveland chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( in Black tuxedo)

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, 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. Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist, educator and 21-year investigative journalist who trained at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio for 17 years.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio- The final meeting of four scheduled open-to-the public community sessions sponsored by Cleveland City Council's safety committee in response to a U.S. Department of Justice report that found systemic problems in the Cleveland Police Department will be held in Cleveland Ward 9 on Tuesday, January 20, at 6 pm at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church, 1161 East 105th Street.

Ward 9 is located on the city's largely Black east side and is represented by Councilman Kevin Conwell, former chair and now co-chair of the safety committee.

In addition to Conwell, several members of the 17-member Cleveland City Council are expected to attend the community forum, including Jeff Johnson, Zack Reed, Mamie Mitchell, Terrell Pruitt, Phyllis Cleveland, Safety Committee Chairman Matt Zone, and Council President Kevin Kelley.

Greater Abyssinia is led by senior pastor the Rev Dr. E. Theophilis Caviness, also the executive directer of the greater Cleveland chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the first vice president of the Cleveland NAACP.

The Rev Hilton Smith, an associate minister at Greater Abyssinia,is the president of the Cleveland NAACP.

The meeting is part of city council's listening tour on police brutality issues and comes on the heels of Martin Luther King Day protests held yesterday and sponsored by the grassroots groups Puncture the Silence, Revolution Books and the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network,among others.

Protesters rallied on the holiday of the slain Civil Rights leader for 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot and killed late last year by Cleveland police for sporting a toy pellet gun at a park on the city's west side, and for Tanisha Anderson.

The unarmed Anderson was killed by Cleveland police in November following an altercation at her home on the city's east side, after her family called for an ambulance for non-violent mental health reasons.

Anderson was slammed to the ground and killed by a Black cop while citing the Lord's Prayer, and Rice was gunned down by a rookie White police officer.

Both Rice and Anderson, 37, were Black.

The DOJ's findings on gross impropriety by Cleveland police, which were announced last month by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and came following a 20-month investigation, are damning, from illegal deadly force, to vicious pistil whippings of adults and children, and "cruel and unusual punishment against the mentally ill."

A consent decree between the city of Cleveland and the federal government, and designed to address the DOJ findings, is in the workings.

The national spotlight is on Cleveland, a majority Black major American city, relative to the Rice shooting, and the killing of Anderson, among other high profile police killings.

The night of November 29, 2012 13 non-Black Cleveland police officers gunned down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell slinging 137 bullets following a car chase that began in Cleveland and ended in neighboring East Cleveland. Both Russell and Williams were homeless at the time, but not wanted by the law.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)