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Activists, family members of murdered 22-year-old East Cleveland woman to host 4:30 pm vigil on November 12, 2021 outside of the burned out abandoned home where her body was found this week, the murder occurring after the young Black woman was kidnapped

12 November 2021

Kathy

Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

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

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio -Community activists and immediate and other family members of 22-year- old Alishah Pointer (pictured), whose lifeless body was found Tuesday in an abandoned home in East Cleveland, a neighboring Black and impoverished suburb of Cleveland, will host a vigil at 4:30 pm on Fri., Nov 12 to remember Pointer and to demand justice for the young Black woman and her family. (Call activist Art McKoy at (216) 253-4070 for more information on the vigil).

The vigil will be held at 14500 Savannah Avenue in East Cleveland, which is the burned out home where Pointer's body was discovered earlier this week.

"We will stand with the family members for justice for Alishah and we need everybody at today's vigil in East Cleveland, said longtime East Cleveland activist Art McKoy of Black on Black Crime, who will lead the vigil and added that women's groups like Imperial Avenue Women Coalition and Brickhouse Wellness Center will also attend at the vigil and are also upset over the gruesome murder.

Four suspects, including Nathaniel Poke, 32-year-old Brittany Smith of Cleveland, and a 17-year-old, have been arrested and are in custody in connection with the gruesome murder

Police are still searching for Hakeem Ali Shomo and Anthony Bryant, 18, and both of Cleveland.

East Cleveland Police Chief Scott Gardner told reporters that a group of suspects lured Pointer out of her home last week, kidnapped her, took her to several different locations where she was tortured her, and then viciously murdered her.

Chief Gardner said a group of suspects lured Pointer out of her home last week, took her to several different locations, tortured, and then murdered her.

Suspects thought Pointer had information about a suspect involved in another murder that happened Nov 2 in Cleveland and they tortured her to were try to force her to talk, tough police say she knew nothing about the Cleveland murder.

Pointer's family reported her missing from North Randall on Nov 4

Pointer’s aunt, Kathryn R. Pointer, told reporters that her niece " always had a helping spirit and she wanted to always provide all kinds of acts of kindness, whether it be for a child, an adult, or the elderly."

Alishah worked as a caregiver and was also helping her twin sister, who is 8-months pregnant, police said.

East Cleveland police are asking anyone with information to contact East Cleveland detectives at 216-451-1234, the Cleveland FBI at 1-877-FBI-OHIO, or Cuyahoga County Crime Stoppers at 216-252-7463.

Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog.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.

Activists, family members of murdered 22-year-old East Cleveland woman to host 4:30 pm vigil on November 12, 2021 outside of the burned out abandoned home where her body was found this week, the murder occurring after the young Black woman was kidnapped

12 November 2021

Kathy

Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

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

The vigil will be held at 14500 Savannah Avenue in East Cleveland, which is the burned out home where Pointer's body was discovered earlier this week.

Four suspects, including Nathaniel Poke, 32-year-old Brittany Smith of Cleveland, and a 17-year-old, have been arrested and are in custody in connection with the gruesome murder

Police are still searching for Hakeem Ali Shomo and Anthony Bryant, 18, and both of Cleveland.

Chief Gardner said a group of suspects lured Pointer out of her home last week, took her to several different locations, tortured, and then shot and killed her.

Police say Pointer was dating a man that suspects thought were responsible for murdering a family member on friend and were trying to get her to give information on her boyfriend's whereabouts.

Pointer's family reported her missing from North Randall on Nov 4

Alishah worked as a caregiver and was also helping her twin sister, who is 8-months pregnant, police said.

East Cleveland police are asking anyone with information to contact East Cleveland detectives at 216-451-1234, the Cleveland FBI at 1-877-FBI-OHIO, or Cuyahoga County Crime Stoppers at 216-252-7463.

Last Updated on Saturday, 13 November 2021 20:45

Will the win by Biden and congressional Democrats of his $1.3 trillion infrastructure deal change the country's mood that saw the Democrats lose closely watched state races in last Tuesday's elections and the gubernatorial race in Virginia?

09 November 2021

Kathy

Pictured is United States President Joe Biden

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor, associate publisher

Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

WASHINGTON, D.C.- President Joe Biden's $1.3 trillion infrastructure deal, bipartisan legislation passed by Congress on Friday after months of negotiations and weeks of congressional infighting, is a welcome relief for the first-term president as midterm elections loom and the coronavirus pandemic rages on. But will the president's infrastructure win change the mood of the country that saw the Democrats lose closely watched state races and a gubernatorial race in Virginia to Republicans in last Tuesday's election, a political mood that also threatens the Democrats' narrow control in the U.S. Senate?

The bill awaits the president's signature to become law.

The 228-to-206 vote late on Friday in the House of Representatives of the ambitious spending bill is, no doubt, a substantial victory for Biden and his Democrats. And it furthers the president's domestic agenda, one that conservative-leaning Republicans, let alone some moderate members of his own party, continue to question as over broad and unnecessarily expensive.

Biden expressed gratitude for support of his infrastructure deal from the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris, the nation's first Black vice president, by his side.

Supported especially by the progressive wing of Congress, particularly in the House, the measure includes significant infrastructure investments, including relative to bridges, roads, railways, drinking water, and broadband internet in poor and rural communities in particular.

“Finally. Infrastructure week,” Biden said in response to passage of his infrastructure legislation last week, alluding to the failure by his predecessor, former president Donald Trump, to get mass infrastructure bills through Congress.

The former vice president under former president Barack Obama who ousted Trump from the White House in 2020 with a promise of bringing calm and economic stability to a country burdened by a partisan divide and never-ending congressional bickering, Biden hastened to contribute Tuesday's election night losses by Democrats in major races nationwide to the delay in getting his infrastructure deal approved by Congress but expressed some regret that it did not pass sooner.

The president said that his infrastructure deal is the first of its kind and the first time in history that Congress has approved such a massive investment. It comes behind passage of a massive stimulus package by Congress in March that President Biden championed.

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, also called the COVID-19 Stimulus Package or American Rescue Plan, is Biden's $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill, a bill passed by Congress in March in response to the economic, physical and other effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over a half million Americans, and even more worldwide.

First proposed in January of this year, the American Rescue Plan builds upon many of the measures in the CARES Act from March 2020 and in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, from December.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 10 November 2021 15:26

Vigil: Cleveland activists, Imperial Women Coalition to host 5 pm Nov. 11, 2021 12th anniversary rally and vigil at Imperial Avenue Murders monument just erected on Imperial Avenue where the late serial killer Anthony Sowell murdered 11 Black women.

07 November 2021

Kathy

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

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cleveland area activists, led by the Imperial Women Coalition, Black on Black Crime Inc., and Peace in the Hood, will host a rally and vigil beginning at 5 pm on Thurs., Nov. 11, 2021 on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland's Mt. Pleasant neighborhood where the home of the late serial killer Anthony Sowell murdered 11 Black women and raped three others once stood and where a memorial monument has been just erected in honor of the 11 Black women. The specific address of the event is 12205 Imperial Avenue in Cleveland. The event is also the 12-year Imperial Avenue Murders anniversary rally and march.

Paid for by the Western Reserve Land Conservatory and dubbed "The Garden of 11 Angels," the monument has the names of the 11 murdered women engraved in its marble.

Led by an unknown suburban White woman, the land conservatory held a ribbon cutting ceremony on Sat, Nov 6. 2021 with a few family members that drew about 80 other people, but community activists who had fought for justice as to the murders were not invited and the community essentially stayed away. Also, Black men and Black male clergy, namely the Mt Pleasant preachers, were also told by the White organizers of the gathering that they could not speak at the event.

"Our rally and vigil will be inclusive and will include Black women activists who have been in the trenches for 12 years relative to the Imperial Avenue Murders, men and Black male clergy and family members of murdered Black women who were not invited to Saturday's ribbon cutting ceremony as well as Black elected officials and family members of Blacks whose killers remain at large," said community activist Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads the Imperial Women Coalition, a grassroots activist group founded in 2009 when the murders became public.

Coleman said that the anti-Black outside group that hosted Saturday's ribbon cutting ceremony and has no real ties to the Black community is connected to the current administration at City Hall that has essentially ignored heightened crime against Black women and that "our message at our upcoming rally and vigil on Imperial Avenue will include a call for the incoming mayor and incoming city council president to address this growing epidemic of violence against women, Black women and poor women in particular."

Black on Black Crime President Alfred Porter Jr said it was disrespectful for the land conservatory to hold a racist and sexist ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday that excluded community activists and Black women who have fought for justice for the 11 murdered women.

"It was completely disrespectful for Matt Zone and the Western Reserve Land Conservatory to exclude Black community activists and the community as to their secret ribbon cutting ceremony for the monument that activists knew nothing about," said Porter. "And Yvonne Pointer, whom they and the mainstream media put out as an activist at the event, is part of problem as she was a liaison for City Hall when the Imperial Avenue Murders occurred and she would come to rallies and defend City Hall officials and police negligence around the murders until they got tired of her and she suddenly retired years ago."

Porter went on to say that "White folks who care nothing about us and who do not live in the Black community will no longer subordinate us or mistreat us with the help of the mainstream media like that did as to Saturday's event on Imperial as it is a new day in Cleveland not only in terms of the office of the mayor and the city council president, but in terms of how we as Black and other activists mobilize people around the issues we continue to fight for in the trenches, including violence against Black women."

Black on Black Crime Founder Art McKoy agreed and added that "we need all activists and others to join us for our rally and vigil on Imperial on November 11."

Speakers for the event include McKoy and Porter, Cleveland Councilman Joe Jones, East Cleveland Councilman Ernest Smith, Rev Aaron Phillips, activists Donna Walker Brown, Khalid Samad, Delores Gray, Laura Cowan, Genevieve Mitchell and the Rev Pamela Pinkney Butts, and Angelique Malone, whose mother was murdered at the intersection of East 93rd Street and Bessemer Avenue on Cleveland's east side and her killer or killers remain at large like the killer and killers of so many other Black women of Cleveland

Aside from the Imperial Women Coalition,other participating groups for the upcoming rally and vigil on Nov. 11 on Imperial include Cleveland Peacemakers, Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, Cleveland Clergy Alliance, the Black Man's Army, the Brickhouse Wellness Center, International Women's Day March Cleveland, Laura Cowan Foundation Find Our Children The Missing-Ebony Alert, Survivors and Victims of Tragedy, Black on Black Crime Inc, Peace in the Hood, Refusefacism Ohio, Carl Stokes Brigade, and members of the Coalition to Stop the Inhumanities in the Cuyahoga County Jail.

Oct. 29 marked the 12th -year anniversary since 2009 when law enforcement authorities began pulling the first of what would ultimately become 11 dead Black bodies from inside and outside of Sowell's Imperial Avenue home, and from next door at the now defunct sausage company.

Dead at the hands of serial killer Sowell are Tishana Culver, Leshanda Long, Michelle Mason, Tonia Carmichael, Nancy Cobbs, Amelda Hunter, Telacia Fortson, Janice Webb, Kim Yvette Smith, and Diane Turner.

Dubbed the 'Cleveland strangler," Sowell, who died earlier this year in prison and on death row of a terminal illness at 61-years-old, was convicted in 2011 by a Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas jury on 82 of 83 counts, including 11 counts of aggravated murder and three counts of rape.

Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose, the trial court judge who presided over Sowell's criminal case and a former Cleveland Browns football player, handed the serial killer a death sentence.

Six of the 11 murdered women were killed by Sowell after Cleveland police released him from custody in 2008 on a rape complaint, the serial killer arrested again in 2009 on another rape complaint that stuck, but only after he murdered six more women. Police also ignored missing persons reports filed by family members of the victims, allegedly because the victims were poor Black women.

Sowell and his lawyers exhausted all appeals that sought to overturn his convictions and death sentence, including to the U.S. Supreme court, which refused to hear his case in 2017.

The city settled with the families of the six women murdered after Sowell was erroneously released from custody in 2008 in spite of a pending rape complaint with police for $1 million, which was split between the six families. Five other families that sued await settlement.

A former U.S. marine, Sowell served 15 years in prison for attempted rape prior to the Imperial Avenue Murders.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog. 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 Sunday, 16 January 2022 22:56

Blaine Griffin chosen as Cleveland City Council's new president to replace outgoing council president Kevin Kelley, Kelley losing the mayor's race to Justin Bibb, the city's fourth Black mayor....Griffin is Black like Bibb

05 November 2021

Kathy

Cleveland Ward 6 Councilman Blaine Griffin, city council's new president, who will succeed outgoing president Kevin Kelley, who lost a nonpartisan runoff election on Tuesday to Justin Bibb, the city's mayor-elect and the fourth Black mayor of Cleveland, a largely Black major American city

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.comTel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com

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

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland City Council broke the tradition of selecting a White as council president when voters choose a Black as mayor and voted Friday for east side Ward 6 councilman Blaine Griffin, who is Black, to succeed outgoing Council President Kevin Kelley, a White west side councilman who lost the mayor's race on Tuesday to newcomer Justin Bibb, who is Black.

It is the first time in Cleveland's history that the city has had a Black as mayor and a Black as city council president at the same time. Current four-term mayor Frank Jackson, who is retiring at the end of the year, is Black, and Kelley has been city council president for the mayor's last two terms, partly because of the tradition that if the mayor is Black the city council president must be White, a tradition that activists and others began to question as a back door measure to ensure that Whites have a leadership role in the top spots of mayor or city council president no matter how it comes about.

The unofficial caucus vote in support of Griffin by 16 of the 17 council persons who won via Tuesday election who were present, including Griffin, who voted for himself, signifies how they will officially vote in January, which means that Griffin is city council's new president. West side Councilman Brian Kazy was not present for Friday's vote. Outgoing council members were not invited, and could not vote, which is the process or practice after an election for mayor and city council every four years.

A third of the city council members are new, after Tuesday's election.

Black Lives Matter Cleveland immediately objected to what the organization said was the selection of a council president less than 24 hours after an election and demanded that unit rule be abolished. A quasi-rule of procedure under which council members must vote for the candidate for council president who is preferred by the majority of city council or face ridicule, Griffin managed to win over a majority of city council and, in turn, he was unanimously selected as council president on Friday.

Even the new members of city council came aboard and supported Griffin, a suggestion, said Black Lives Matter Cleveland on

Bibb, 34 and a former Barack Obama intern and progressive who has never held office before and who will become the city's fourth Black mayor and second youngest behind former mayor Dennis Kucinich, beat Kelley, with 63 percent of the vote to his 37 percent.

The elections for mayor and city council are nonpartisan and Mayor-elect Bibb and all 17 city council members are Democrats, as are Jackson and Kelley, who had served 16 years on city council, and eight of those years as council president.

Speaking to his city council colleagues after he was named city council president on Friday, Griffin called Bibb's landslide mayoral election victory on Tuesday a mandate.

“The citizens of this community want to see change. They want to see change in a way they can touch, feel, and see in their communities and neighborhoods,” said Griffin, the majority leader for council under Kelley leading up to Friday's vote for him as city's council's new leader. “We’re really going to have to work together as a body.”

A former community relations board director under Jackson who was elected to council in 2017, Griffin is an establishment politician connected to the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party who knows the ropes, and Black people. And he is Jackson's protege.

Griffin and Mayor Jackson endorsed Kelley for mayor as did most but not all of city council, also including Black council persons Ward 2 Councilman Kevin Bishop, Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell, and outgoing Ward 5 Councilwoman Delores Gray, who lost to precinct committee member and ward leader Richard Starr and was therefore not among those who voted for the new council president.

Armed with a progressive campaign team and endorsements from former Cleveland mayors Jane Campbell and Michael R. White and U.S. Sen Brown of Cleveland, Bibb ran a grassroots campaign with promises to increase public safety and transform the city's troubled police department that resonated with voters.

Cleveland is a Democratic stronghold and a largely Black city of some 372,000 people, and one of the poorest nationwide of major American cities. The city is currently a party to a court-monitored consent decree for police reform with the U.S. Department of Justice behind a host of unprecedented and celebrated police killings of Black people, including 12-year-old Tamir Rice and Tanisha Anderson in 2014, and the 137-shots shooting deaths of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012.

Also on Tuesday, Cleveland voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative that amends the city's charter to address police reform issues. Dubbed Issue 24, the ballot initiative that voters sanctioned makes changes to the Office of Community Standards and creates the Community Police Commission, which has the final say on police policies from recruitment to exams, officer training, and outreach efforts.

Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the MidwestTel: (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 November 2021 18:12

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Activists, family members of murdered 22-year-old East Cleveland woman to host 4:30 pm vigil on November 12, 2021 outside of the burned out abandoned home where her body was found this week, the murder occurring after the young Black woman was kidnapped

Activists, family members of murdered 22-year-old East Cleveland woman to host 4:30 pm vigil on November 12, 2021 outside of the burned out abandoned home where her body was found this week, the murder occurring after the young Black woman was kidnapped

Will the win by Biden and congressional Democrats of his $1.3 trillion infrastructure deal change the country's mood that saw the Democrats lose closely watched state races in last Tuesday's elections and the gubernatorial race in Virginia?

Vigil: Cleveland activists, Imperial Women Coalition to host 5 pm Nov. 11, 2021 12th anniversary rally and vigil at Imperial Avenue Murders monument just erected on Imperial Avenue where the late serial killer Anthony Sowell murdered 11 Black women.

Blaine Griffin chosen as Cleveland City Council's new president to replace outgoing council president Kevin Kelley, Kelley losing the mayor's race to Justin Bibb, the city's fourth Black mayor....Griffin is Black like Bibb

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