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Cleveland activists to protest May 30 for justice for Minneapolis police murder victim George Floyd as riots erupt in Minneapolis-Floyd was Black and his killing by cops follows Eric Garner by Staten Island police, and Tamir Rice by Cleveland police

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Pictured are police murder victims George Floyd of Minneapolis (wearing gray), Eric Garner of Staten Island (wearing red), and 12-year-old of Cleveland, Ohio

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com

 

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cleveland activists, led by Black Lives Matter Cleveland, will protest beginning at 1:30 pm on Sat, May 30 at the Free Stamp next to Cleveland City Hall for justice for Minneapolis police murder victim George Floyd, whom police killed on Monday via an unprecedented act of excessive force where the arresting White cop pinned him down and held his knee on his neck before a crowd as Floyd, for nearly 10 minutes, cried he could not breathe and begged for his life. (Editor note: The arresting former officer, Derek Chauvin, has since been charged with third degree murder and manslaughter charges and currently sits in jail).



The unarmed Floyd was pronounced dead an hour later at an area hospital, the knee pinning rendering him unconscious.


The disturbing video of the incident, taken by a bystander, has prompted protests in the city, and nationwide, and demands for criminal charges against the officers involved.


All four officers involved in the sordid killing, all of them White, were immediately fired.


Via a second night of protesting in Minneapolis, protesters began rioting with widespread looting and fires as crowds clashed with police who met them with tear gas and rubber bullets.


Multiple businesses were destroyed and the governor has called in the National Guard.

 

Floyd's family is now represented by famed Black lawyer Benjamin Crump, who, along with the family, want the cops prosecuted, and even the

 

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called on Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to "act on the evidence before him and press charges on the arresting officer."

 

Joe Biden, the Democratic presumptive nominee who served as vice president under former president Barack Obama, condemned the celebrated incident as "a horrific killing."

 

Arrested on a forgery charge, Floyd, 46, was Black and his murder has resurrected anger in the Black community relative to Staten Island police murder victim Eric Garner, whom New York police choked to death in 2014, the same year Cleveland police gunned down 12-year-old Tamir Rice at a park and recreation center on the city's largely White west side.

 

The list is long on unarmed Black men and boys like Floyd, Garner and Rice dying illegally at the hands of privileged White cops who traditionally get away with no jail time, and usually with no prosecution whatsoever.


Arrested for allegedly selling loose cigarettes, Garner begged for his life before he died too, the impetus for the all so famous words "I Can't Breathe," which he too, like Floyd, cried out as he was being murdered by a White cop.


Garner's killer got fired five years after Garner was killed and Rice's killer was later fired but not for killing Rice, whom the White rookie cop killed in less than 2 seconds after arriving at the scene with his White partner.


They say that Rice's toy gun appeared real.

 

Black Lives Matter Cleveland states the following on its Facebook event page relative to the  May 29 protest on Saturday at the Free Stamp in Cleveland:


It's a constant reminder that Black lives don't matter in America when you are presumed to be a criminal.


Black people are never innocent until proven guilty, we are automatically tried, convicted and punished before even having our day in Court. Where is the due process for Black people? Why are we not afforded the same rights under the constitution as our white counterparts?


Black Lives Matter Cleveland is joining the call for justice,.We are sick and tired of asking for humanity. We are sick and tired of begging for our freedom. We are sick and tired of seeing Black bodies laying in the streets of America. We are sick and tired of video after video of our people being murdered, gunned down, stalked and hunted in the streets.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.comthe most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 10 June 2020 04:30

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news

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2020, 2019-176 , 2018-181, 2017-173, 2016-137, 2015-213, 2014-266, 2013-226, 2012-221, 2011-135, 2010-109, 2009-5


Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

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Black Florida Congresswoman Val Demings criticizes Biden for his remark that Blacks who do not vote for him ain't Black, Demings a possible vice presidential contender on Biden's ticket and Biden up 11 points in the polls over Trump

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Pictured are Florida Congresswoman Val Demings (D-FL) and former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee for the Democratic nomination for president

 

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com

 

 


CLEVELAND, Ohio-Florida Congresswomen Val Demings, a contender to be on former vice president Joe Biden's ticket for president as his vice presidential running mate, is chastising him for his controversial comment on Black voters, Biden apologizing for saying in a radio interview last week that if Blacks “have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black."


The remark by the former vice president provoked negative feedback from supporters of President Donald Trump, whom Biden will face in November as the presumptive Democratic nominee, and it brought constructive criticism from some Black leaders and politicians who stopped short of ditching Biden as their choice for president, many calling the comment inappropriate and "White privilege."

 

“The vice-president shouldn’t have said it,” Rep. Demings said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.


Some Biden supporters said he said what some Blacks are thinking.


"He [Joe Biden] was making an observation and I agree with him," said Veronica Deloach in a Facebook post on Saturday.


A Black Californian and Biden supporter, Deloach said that Trump's policies are detrimental to America's Black community and that  "someone had to say it ,and it is unfortunate that a Black person did not have the guts to say it."


Biden has  publicly expressed regret for the remark, calling it "really unfortunate."

 

And he said he should not have made the comment.


" I shouldn't have been such a wise guy," Biden said in apologizing.


Whether Demings' comment in response to Biden's now infamous racial remark will hurt her chances of becoming his running mate remains to be seen.

 

Biden committed to a female running-mate during the 11th Democratic Debate on March 15 in Washington, D.C., elevating curiosity on exactly whom he will choose to walk with him on the campaign trial, an election contest limited by the coronavirus pandemic that began storming the U.S. in early March.

 

Other women on his short list, say sources, are former presidential candidates U.S. Sens Kamala Harris Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, former Atlanta state legislator Stacey Abrams, who is Black Latina Congresswoman Catherine-Cortez-Mastro, and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.


Both Demings, a Jacksonville native who has represented Florida's 10th congressional district since 2017, and Harris are Black, and in American politics, race does often matter.

 

U.S. Rep James Clyburn has said publicly that he wants a woman on Biden's ticket and "preferably an African-American woman."

 

A seasoned and respected congressman, Clyburn is Black and is credited with reviving Biden's then failing campaign by endorsing him for South Carolina's primary, which Biden won over former Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders, and never looked back, his campaign saying also that he did not necessarily expect to win in the earlier primaries like in Iowa and in New Hampshire, White voters territory without a doubt.


Harris took on Biden on race too.


A junior U.S. senator and former California attorney general, Harris raised eyebrows when she took on Biden during the First Democratic Debate on the race issue, saying he fraternized with segregationists when he was U.S. senator and that he should not have opposed court-ordered public school busing plans, busing a 1970s, 80s and 90s phenomenon in place to seek to remedy racial disparities and intentional discrimination against Black children in America's  general largely Black public school districts.


A former longtime U.S. senator who served as president under Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, Biden's recent comments on race and his efforts to act as arbiter of the black vote reignited criticism of his support as a senator of the 1994 anti-Black crime bill he backed when democrat Bill Clinton was president.


Pundits have said that the push back will likely blow over, given Biden's universal appeal among Black voters, particularly southern and elderly voters, and due to the fact that he is the front-runner for winning the presidency this year, polls show.

 

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday has Biden up by 11 points in a head-to-head- match-up with President Trump 50%-39%.

 

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.comthe most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 May 2020 01:42

Black activists, jail coalition to picket the judges next week at the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland over coronavirus deaths in Ohio prisons and want the early release of some prisoners, speedy trials for defendants, indigent counsel, etc

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Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog, both also top in Black digital news in the Midwest.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com

 

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland's Black activists, as part of a larger coalition, will picket to alert judges of the 34-member largely White Cuyahoga County general division common pleas court and municipal court judges countywide on Friday May 29 from 12 pm-2 pm at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center in downtown Cleveland in response to numerous issues, and mainly a wave of deaths from the coronavirus in Ohio's 27 prisons that have claimed the lives of more than 73 prisoners and two staffers.


CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE RELATIVE TO THE PARTICIPATION OF IMPERIAL WOMEN COALITION AND BLACK ON BLACK CRIME INC IN THE PROTEST


The activists say the judges need to wake up and do their jobs, including hearing motions for early release during a pandemic, and that they should fight with activists and prison reform advocates to save Ohio prisoners from dying from a virus that is sweeping Ohio prisons in rare form.


The protest is both a car rally, where people in cars will meet at 12:30 pm on May 29 at at the staging location at 5340 Hamilton and will caravan from the staging location to the Justice Center where they will remain in other cars and circle the block at 1pm, and a foot rally where those on foot shall meet at the Justice Center at 1 pm for a rally where activists will march along side of the cars around the Justice Center and nearby so that their voices are heard.


There will also be speeches at 1:30 pm on the steps of the Justice Center on Lakeside Ave. that will include former prisoners, family members of current Ohio prisoners, and leaders of Black-led Cleveland groups since the virus has infected and killed Blacks nationwide and in Ohio at a rate more than double that of Whites.


Social distancing is encouraged, organizers said, but free speech governs.

 

Imperial Women Coalition and Black on Black Crime, Black area Cleveland activist groups, will join the Coalition to Stop the Humanity in the Cuyahoga County Jail, a coalition of more that 15 activist groups, for the long overdue protest against the judges.


The deadly virus, COVID-19, has killed some 5 million people worldwide and more than 1.6 million nationally, some 1,720 of them in Ohio, which has reported 30,819 total confirmed cases from the pandemic to date.


Activists want the judges to address motions for early prison release and a host of other legal matters, including meritorious motions for dismissal on speedy trial grounds of applicable defendants' cases, home confinement in lieu of prison and jail where necessary, bond reduction, denial of indigent counsel, excessive sentences, malicious prosecutions, and the fact that a disproportionate number of the nearly 50,000 prisoners in Ohio's state prisons where the coronavirus is running rampant are Black.


And while the Cuyahoga County Jail in Cleveland that U.S. Marshals in November 2018 deemed unconstitutional and inhumane in a now infamous report has reduced its inmate population from some 2,500 inmates to less than 1,000 since the coronavirus outbreak that began in March, more needs to be done relative to a jail where nine inmates have died in less than two years.


It too is plagued with the coronavirus.


The 29 percent Black county is the second largest of Ohio's 88 counties and it includes Cleveland.

 

"What the judges are doing to prisoners in Ohio during this pandemic just furthers what we have been saying about them all along," said activist and Black on Black Crime President Alfred Porter Jr. "They do not care about administering justice fairly and they are a problem to the Black community, which is getting hurt the most by this."


Activist Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads Imperial Women Coalition and is a key organizer of Women's March Cleveland and International Women's Day March Cleveland, said that "we want women released from these prisons where the virus is rampant and they remain unprotected, as well as a comprehensive investigation by authorities of what is going on in our courts, jails and prisons during a pandemic that is disproportionately impacting the Black community, Black women and Blacks caught up in our racist, sexist and unconstitutional legal system."


Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was sued last Friday by a group of Ohio prisoners who want the immediate release of thousands of prisoners threatened by the outbreak of the coronavirus, a pandemic that has claimed millions of lives worldwide, some 1,600 of them in Ohio alone.


Filed in the U.S. District Court in Columbus, the suit accuses DeWine and the state’s prison director, Annette Chambers-Smith, both defendants in the lawsuit, of violating prisoners constitutional rights by failing to to control or prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and of having a negligent disregard for the welfare and safety of prisoners during a pandemic.


A disproportionate number of inmates that have died in state prisons in Ohio of the coronavirus, and those who have nationally lost their lives in the custody of their respective states, are Black.


The lawsuit, which seeks class action status and the release of more than 15,000 prison inmates, comes as common pleas judges in Cuyahoga County and throughout Ohio are purportedly ignoring motions for the early release of prisoners.


The judges, who are not defendants in the lawsuit, say the courts are partially closed and that they have limited case dockets. Hence, some matters, like hearing early release motions, are often getting put on the back-burner, criminal defense attorneys argue.


Some 12 inmates and one correction officer have died from the virus in the Marion Correctional Institution that houses a lot of defendants that come from Cuyahoga County since the virus broke-out two months ago.

 

In addition to the release of thousands of inmates with medical conditions serving time on low-level felonies, attorneys representing the plaintiffs named in the suit have requested that the court order the governor and state prison officials to release low-security risk inmates and those who have served the majority of their sentences.


Some inmates should be given home confinement for the remainder of their sentences, the suit says.


Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog, both also top in disgital news in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

Last Updated on Friday, 29 May 2020 23:46

"Aisha's Law" unanimously passes the Ohio House, Aisha the murdered ex-wife of former Common Pleas Judge Lance Mason of greater Cleveland....The domestic violence bill now heads to the Ohio Senate for likely approval....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman

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Pictured are Aisha Fraser (wearing blue), the ex-wife of former Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge Lance Mason, whom he murdered in 2018, Lance Mason himself, and Ohio state Representative Janine Boyd, a Cleveland Heights Democrat

 

 

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio House of Representatives on Wednesday unanimously passed "Aisha's Law," a domestic violence bill named after Shaker Heights elementary school teacher Aisha Fraser, the ex-wife of former Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge Lance Mason, also a former Ohio senator who stabbed Fraser to death two-years ago with two kitchen knives in front of their two young children.

 

The bill, House Bill 3, awaits likely approval in the Ohio Senate and would  require police to screen domestic violence victims to access if they are at risk for heinous crimes like murder and would provide domestic violence survivors access to housing childcare, job training and and other supportive measures.

 

The bill, sponsored by state Rep.  Janine Boyd, a Cleveland Democrat and, Sara Carruthers, a Cincinnati-area Republican, creates the crime of domestic violence aggravated murder if the abuse ends in murder, and it increases penalties for reckless strangulation.

 

It also allocates $150,000 for police training relative to domestic violence cases.

 

Mason pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and several other charges last year.

 

His unprecedented murder of his ex-wife, a beloved school teacher and Black woman, has rocked greater Cleveland.


Fraser had come to drop off one of their two young daughters the day Mason went off, and he was under a protective order at the time and living in his ex-wife's home with his adult sister, who called 9-1-1 after one of the children, the eight-year-old, ran inside the home from the car to alert her aunt of her father's stabbing of their mother.

Stark County visiting judge John Haas, who presided after all of Mason's former judicial colleagues on the common pleas bench either recused themselves or refused the case,  sentenced Mason, 52, to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 35 years, meaning that the former judge cannot even be considered for release from prison until he is at least 87 years old.

 

Mason spoke at sentencing and said he was upset that his ex-wife had men around his daughters without him being there too, and he said he knew he had let his daughters down by killing their mother.

The disgraced former judge who served time in prison for felonious assault on Fraser had been charged in the current case via a multi-count indictment with murder, aggravated murder, felonious assault, theft, stalking and violating a protective order and consent agreement.

A county grand jury did not seek the death penalty per Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley, a Democrat like Mason and a former Parma Safety director and former chief deputy under former count prosecutor Bill Mason, Bill Mason now chief of staff to County Executive Armond Budish.

Upset over the gruesome killing, O'Malley told reporters yesterday that Lance Mason, who is no relation to Bill Mason, is "a sick individual."

 

His office sought the maximum sentence of life without parole, plus an additional 15 1/2 years, but to no avail, the visiting judge opting for a lesser sentence.

The former judge's bond, which he has no use for since getting sentenced, was set at $5 million.

Declared indigent he is represented by appointed attorneys Tom Shaughnessy and Kevin Spellacy in the celebrated case that has made national news, Mason a Cleveland City Hall minority businesses administrator when he stabbed Fraser to death on Nov 17, 2018 without any mercy whatsoever.

Lance Mason is by all means violent, more evidence that White collar Black men beat and kill their wives and ex-wives too.

He served nine months of a two- year prison sentence following convictions on felonious assault and domestic violence involving Fraser in 2015, and remained angry, sources said.

The unprecedented murder is steeped in political controversy, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor, taking heat for hiring Mason as a minority  services administrator after he left prison, Mason, also a former attorney with the Baker, Hostetler law firm, stepping into a decent paying city job after prison over some 300 other applicants, the mayor saying he believes in second chances.

Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, who is also Black, faced deeper scrutiny for recommending Mason for the City Hall position via a flowery recommendation letter made public in local and national media reports after Fraser's brutal murder and when Fudge toyed with opposing Rep Nancy Pelosi for House speaker, Fudge later saying in response that Mason had been a friend and needed to support his family after prison.

She said she no longer supports him.

At sentencing last year an array of Black leaders who had helped him nab the city job after he returned home from prison were conspicuously absent, absolutely no one speaking on his behalf other than his attorneys.

Fraser, 45 at the time of her death, was also Black, and was a sixth grade teacher at Woodbury Elementary School in Shaker Heights.

A fellow Shaker Heights teacher spoke in support of Fraser at sentencing as did her family members, including an uncle who asked the judge to throw the book at Mason.

Fraser took back her maiden name after divorcing the abusive Mason after the assault.

After he stabbed Fraser to death in the Shaker Heights home driveway, he then stole her car and hit a Shaker Heights police cruiser trying to get away, the former judge later charged with felonious assault on the officer in that cruiser.

Neighbors were well aware of the domestic violence in the Mason home in Shaker Heights before Fraser escaped the abusive judge's wrath and sought refuge through divorce  because it was the talk of the community, sources said.

Before he was ousted as a judge and stripped of his law licence over the felony assault conviction, Mason was the only Black male judge among three of them on the 34-member Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas general division bench, the court led by Presiding and Administrative Judge John Russo who has said that this is his final year as chief judge.

The largely female common pleas bench now has four Black judges, all of them women, judges Shirley Strickland Saffold, Deborah Turner, Cassandra-Collier Williams, and Wanda Jones, the largest number of Blacks ever on that court, which hears felonies, civil lawsuits with damages sought in excess of $15,000, administrative appeals, and a host of other legal matters.

Mason was arrested on Aug. 3, 2014 in Shaker Heights following the physical altercation at Van Aken Boulevard near Glencairn Road that brought him the assault conviction in 2015, Fraser, his then wife and their two kids as passengers in the car he was driving,

Court documents state that Mason hit his then wife Aisha in the face with his fist, bit her, and allegedly slammed her head against the dashboard of the car.

A 9-1-1 tape reveals that Aisha, who was transported to the hospital and later released, told the dispatcher that Mason beat her, threw her from the car, and then drove off with their two young children.

Fraser filed for divorce on Aug. 4, 2014, a day after the 2014 assault incident.

Her divorce petition cites, among other claims, extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty.

Shaker Heights is a largely White middle and upper middle class Cleveland suburb, one of the most affluent communities in the county, and nationwide in some sectors of the city.

 

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog, both also top in disgital news in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.


Last Updated on Friday, 22 May 2020 02:40

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