Pictured is Cleveland Police Chief Wayne Drummond

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor (To hire this political and investigative reporter (Coleman) call 216-659-0473 or email us at editor@clvelenadurbannews.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio — During a press conference on Thursday, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, alongside Chief Director of Public Safety Karrie Howard, Council President Blaine Griffin, Ward 8 Councilman and Safety Committee Chair Mike Polensek, and faith and community leaders, announced the permanent appointment of interim chief Dornat "Wayne" A. Drummond as Cleveland's 41st chief of police.

The appointment comes as city lawyers have reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement with the Cleveland Police Patromen's Association and an affiliated raise for the police rank and file. At the time the deputy chief of police, Drummond stepped up as chief after former police chief Calvin Williams, whose tenure as police chief was steeped in controversy, retired last  year.

Mayor Bibb has been in office since January and is the city's fourth Black mayor, behind his predecesor, Frank Jackson, a strong mayor like Bibb, though Jackson, who opted not to seek reelection last year after four terms as mayor, had an adverserial relstionship with the police union leadership team

Former police chief Calvin Williams is Black and so is Chief Drummond, Bibb, Griffin and Howard. And Cleveland, a Democratic stronghold, is roughly 60 percent Black with a population of some 372,000 people.

The mayor had said that a search would ensue for a permanent replacement for Williams, but he has since decided to promote from within. He said that Drummond is more than qualified to lead Cleveland's police department, the city still under a court-monitored consent decree for police reforms that was instituted with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2015 behind excessive force police killings of a string of Blacks since 2012.

"Sometimes you don't need to do a search to find your leader. Sometimes that leader finds you," said Mayor Bibb, 34, at Thursday's press conference. "Over the past six months as mayor, I have been consistently impressed with Chief Drummond's skills, dedication and genuine passion for the mission of protecting and serving the people of Cleveland. He has demonstrated from day one why he is the right leader to take our police department into the future."

The city's public safety director was as equally supportive.

"I am proud to continue working alongside Chief Wayne Drummond," said Chief Director of Public Safety Karrie D. Howard. "He has been a progressive, dynamic leader of the Cleveland Division of Police and is a true asset to the city."

Drummond said that he is ready for the job, a task that comes behind a wealth of discrepancies since he first became a cop in the late1980s. They include the police shooting death of Michael Pipkins in 1992  to that of so many more Black people thereafter, including the '137 shots' police shooting deaths of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012, and that of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014, not to mention Brandon Jones, rapper Kenneth "Ball" Smith and so many others.

"When I started my career over 33 years ago as a first district patrol officer, I never envisioned that I would become a chief of police," Chief Drummond said. "Every experience I have had, from that day until today, has prepared me well for this opportunity."

In addition to a host of excessive force cases that brought large financial settlements from the city, including $6 million to the family of Tamir Rice, the city faced a riot in May of 2020 during a George Floyd protest in downtown Cleveland, and last November, Cleveland voters overwhelmingly approved Issue 24, a police reform initiative that gives the community more say relative to policing issues.

Drummond became a police officer in 1989 and was promoted to the rank of sergeant in 2000, and then to lieutenant in 2002, supervising units, including the fugitive unit. He also served as the division's public information officer.

In 2005, he was appointed to the rank of commander, overseeing the division's 5th district on the city's largely Black east side, which includes the Collinwood and Glenville neighborhoods. He was appointed to the rank of deputy chief of field operations in 2014, overseeing the five neighborhood districts, the Bureau of Traffic, the Bureau of Community Policing, and special events for the division.

"Over the years I have always appreciated how Chief Drummond, whom I met when he was Fifth District commander, spent time in the community," said longtime Cleveland resident Bill Newsome. "I was living in Glenville when he came on and he was always a presence. He didn't send someone; he came out himself and we felt a real connection with him."

Drummond was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica and grew up in the city's Fairfax Neighborhood. He attended the University of Toledo where he earned a bachelor's degree. He and his wife Trish, whom he has been married to for 27 years, have four children and three grandchildren.

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

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

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey- Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the NAACP National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey on Monday, saying the Biden-Harris administration remains wholeheartedly in support of the nation's oldest Civil Rights organization.

Air Force Two landed at about 10:35 a.m at the Atlantic City International Airport and Harris was greeted there by Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small, and the media.

Upon taking the podium at the Atlantic City Convention Center in downtown Atlantic City, the vice president thanked NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson for his public service, and his commitment to furthering Civil Rights.

"President Johnson, thank you for your years of dedicated partnership and leadership," said Harris to a wealth of applause, adding that Johnson has stood tall "on the issue of voting rights and so many more issues that challenge our nation and its people."

The vice president's speech to convention delegates touched on Civil and voting rights, and gun control, as well as women's rights, the country's first Black and first female vice president also participating in a round table discussion on abortion access and women's reproductive freedoms with some 20 New Jersey state lawmakers.That discussion, which was also part of Monday's NAACP convention forum, comes in the wake of the Supreme Court's June 24 decision that overturned Roe v Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that made abortion legal nationwide.

In assessing and upholding a Mississippi state law that makes abortion illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy, the nation's high court, in Dobbs vs Jackson Heath Organization, knocked down Roe v Wade and relegated authority on whether to outlaw abortion, or to restrict it, to the respective state legislatures

A former California attorney general and U.S. Senator-turned vice president, Harris called the Supreme Court's controversial decision to overturn Roe v Wade "deeply harmful to our nation."

While her speech was laced with references to Roe v Wade, the vice president also said that Congress must be more aggressive in fighting gun violence and that state legislatures nationwide must also step up to address the growing epidemic that disproportionately impacts America's Black community.

"We must repeal the liability shield that protects gun manufacturers and we must renew the assault weapons ban," said Harris, who has appeared before teh Civil Righst group several times, but for the first time as vice president on Monday.

She talked about poverty, racism, and the lyching of Black people on American soil. She said that the longstanding fight by the NAACP and other Civil Rights organizations to make lynching a federal crime paid off in the long run.

"Even though it took a staggering 122 years to finally make lynching a federal crime," the vice president said regarding the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, a landmark federal law passed by Congress in March and President Biden's signature legislation. "But, it must be said, even though it took that long, the NAACP was never deterred and was always determined."

Harris was at ease at the NAACP event before the same organizational leaders who had championed her run for vice president in 2020 after pressuring President Biden to make due on his campaign promise to invite a Black woman to run on his presidential ticket as vice president. And Biden did just that, selecting Harris from among a cadre of qualified Black women vice presidential hopefuls, including former Atlanta Mayor Keesha Lance Bottoms, who is now a senior advisor to the president, former California congresswoman Karen Bass, and former U.S. national security advisor and prior ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.

The vice president concluded her speech by telling the convention delegates that while much has been accomplished for Black people, there is much more work that needs to be done.

"So leaders of the NAACP, together we have accomplished much, but we still have much to do," Vice President she said.