Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor, associate publisher

WESTERN, Pennsylvania.-The shooter who allegedly attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Western Pennsylvania Saturday is dead after being shot in the head by law enforcement, all of it throwing this week's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and the November presidential election between Trump and incumbent President Joe Biden into chaos.

Thomas Matthews Crooks, 20 and of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was the shooter, authorities  also confirming that an unidentified rally goer was also shot and killed by the shooter and two others critically injured. Some rally participants started screaming after the shooting and a few others chanted "USA."

Trump, who was reportedly grazed on the right ear by the bullet but is fine and not seriously injured, according to a family statement,. can be seen and heard by video of the incident speaking at the rally followed by a gunshot, and then shots from law enforcement are fired that took down the shooter. Trump can be seen rushed off stage surrounded by his security staff with blood on his ear and face while he pumps his right hand at the crowd.

The shooter, stationed on top of a building some 500 ft away from Trump, got off several shots before authorities shot and killed him, raising questions about the level of security at the event.

President Biden made a statement after the assassination attempt, decrying the violence and supporting the investigation led by the FBI. Biden boarded Air Force One Saturday night, headed back to the White House from Delaware as pundits quickly branded the shooting of former President Trump an attempt on the life of a presidential nominee.

FBI officials said during a televised press conference after the shooting that the rally scene remains an active crime scene, and that the incident was, in fact, an assassination attempt.

Trump's campaign has said that he will attend the Republican National Convention, which begins Monday in Milwaukee.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog 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.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor, associate publisher-July 10, 2024

DETROIT, Michigan.-President Joe Biden told a jubilant crowd at a campaign rally Friday in Detroit, Michigan that "I am running and we are going to win," quashing speculation that he will quit the presidential race against Republican former President Donald Trump amid mounting pressure from some key Democrats regarding his age at 81, and his mental acuity, or what some naysayers say is the lack thereof.

Crowd members repeatedly yelled "we love you," "we got your back," and "four more years," as the president spoke at the rally podium, an indication that the race is heating up as the Nov. 5, 2024 presidential election nears and Biden and Trump, the respective nominees for the Republican and Democratic parties, are neck and neck in several polls, Trump seeking a comeback win for his 2020 election loss to the incumbent president.

“I’m the nominee of this party because 14 million Democrats like you voted for me in the primaries,” Biden said. “You made me the nominee, no one else. Not the press, not the pundits, not the insiders, not donors, you the voters. You decided, no one else, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Biden preached on a similar list of things that Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned in her keynote speech at the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc national conference in Dallas, Texas on Wednesday, including protecting education, social security, medicaid, medicare and the Affordable Care Act, lowering insulin and other drug prices, reducing inflation, and tackling street assault weapons and gun violence.

President Biden told the upbeat Detroit crowd that "Motown is Joe Town," and that "We are going to beat Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. Donald Trump is a loser."

Biden's campaign rally on Friday in the largely Black city of Detroit in the swing state of Michigan, a state he won over Trump in 2020, comes as both he and Trump are courting the Black vote leading up to the presidential election, both bragging during CNN's June 27 presidential debate about what they claim to have done to improve the lives of Black Americans.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog 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 URBANNEWS.COM

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor, associate publisher-July 10, 2024

DALLAS Texas.-Vice President Kamala Harris delivered the keynote address Wednesday morning at the 71st Boule' convention of the National Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) Sorority Inc. in Dallas, Texas, displaying the articulateness, strength, assertiveness, and oratory brilliance that helped to catapult her to the White House in 2020 as the nation's first female and first Black vice president.

The Black sorority to which Harris is a member, has some 350,000 members nationwide.

Dressed in an AKA-brand pink suit, her message was profound and almost indignant at times as she called on the tentative audience of Black women, some 20,000 of them dressed to the nines in the organization's signature pink and green, to help her lead the charge to keep former President Donald Trump from winning another term in November and to give incumbent President Joe Biden four more years.

The presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, Trump, and Biden, the Democratic nominee, will square off on Nov. 5, 2024 for the closely watched presidential election, a rematch of the 2020 election that Biden won, and what Harris described during her speech as an impending election of a lifetime.

"I do believe that this is the most existential, consequential and important election of our lifetime, Harris said to applause from her sorors at the event. "Because we know when we organize, mountains move, when we mobilize, nation's change, and when we vote, we make history."

A dutiful member of AKA since her undergraduate years at the historically Black Howard University in Washington, D.C., and a former California district attorney, state attorney general, and U.S. senator, Harris' speech sounded at times like campaign rhetoric, and she looked attractive, a plus for a prominent woman politician always under the watchful eye of the public, and the paparazzi. But she was effective and her delivery was almost flawless as she drew a standing ovation from AKA -member "sorors" at the convention, and she got national and local media coverage across the country, silencing critics seeking to brand her simply as Biden's  political sidekick.

She preached on a list of things she says the Biden-Harris administration has done since Biden took office in 2021 and what Trump intends to roll back, including eliminating student loan debt for millions of Americans, protecting education, social security, medicaid and medicare, expanding healthcare, lowering insulin prices, and tackling gun violence and the pandemic. She took on the U.S. Supreme Court for overturning Roe v Wade in 2022 in the case of  Dobbs vs Mississippi Health Organization, for which she blamed Trump for appointing three of the conservative justices who were among the majority relative to the 6-3 decision that reversed the court's landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that made abortion legal nationwide.

The United States of America must respect and honor its women, she said.

"America must trust women, America must honor individual choice, America must defend freedom," the Democratic vice president said. "And when our Congress passes a law that restores the reproductive freedoms of Roe, our president, Joe Biden. will sign it."

She increased her tone in discussing the Supreme Court decision rendered earlier this month that granted Trump immunity for official actions taken as president as he still faces a host of  criminal charges behind a guilty jury verdict on 32 counts in one of four criminal cases brought relative to his business records and his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. Those attempts culminated in a riot at the U.S. Capital Building on Jan 6, 2021, a dark day that Biden and the Democrats say will live in infamy in America.

In short, Harris told the AKA's that the upcoming presidential election is serious business that requires participation by all stakeholders, and that voting rights and freedom and democracy are, no doubt, on the ballot, particularly where Blacks and women's reproductive rights are concerned.

"Sorors this is a serious matter," said Harris in concluding her speech to a rising ovation. "Let us fight for freedom, opportunity and equality."

Harris' AKA convention speech this week in Texas comes as both Trump and Biden are courting the Black vote leading up to the presidential election, both bragging during CNN's June 27 presidential debate about what they claim to have done to improve the lives of Black Americans.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog 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

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor, associate publisher

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Hundreds of law enforcement and public safety officials from Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and across the state attended the memorial service on Monday of slain Cleveland Police Officer Jamieson Ritter, 27, who was gunned down Thursday attempting to arrest a suspect in Cleveland on a Garfield Hts warrant.

Also there were family and friends and some 10 Cleveland council members, some of whom said the memorial was a "sad occasion and indicative of a young life taken too soon."

The motorcade began at Chambers Funeral Home on Rocky River Drive  and ended at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist on Superior Avenue.

Hailed as hero, Ritter was described as a principled and compassionate public servant with a strong moral compass who loved his job as a cop.

Police Chief Dorthy "Annie" Todd, the city's first White female police chief,  lauded him as an officer and a gentleman who had “a relentless pursuit of justice.”

Todd joined police officers who prayed and surrounded Ritter’s family, including his parents and siblings. Gov. Mike DeWine and Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, the city's fourth Black mayor. also offered their condolences to the Ritter family.

Officer Ritter was among some 10 officers who went to a home on East 80th Place in Cleveland's Hough neighborhood  on the Fourth of of July holiday to arrest De’Lawnte Hardy, who is Black, at about 1 a.m. Thursday. The  Garfield Hts warrant  accuses Hardy, 24, of shooting his grandmother in the face, stealing her gun, and fleeing.

Hardy purportedly fired five shots, with one  hitting Ritter and killing him, according to police reports and authorities. He  fled and was arrested shortly after the shooting. He is charged with aggravated murder in Ritter's death and is being held on a $5 million bond.

The memorial service focused on Ritter’s life. He was a Syracuse University graduate and had moved to Cleveland from suburban Rochester, New York.  He was also a member of the  National Guard and had been deployed to Syria.

Ritter  joined Cleveland police in November of  2020 and worked as a patrolman in the Third District.  Sources said he was respected by his peers in the police department.

A funeral service will be held in suburban New York at a later date, sources said Monday.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog 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.