Pictured are the Rev Al Sharpton (wearing gray suit), and the Rev. Dr. Jawanza Colvin (wearing Black suit)
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist and 22- year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
CLEVELAND, Ohio- Renowned Civil Rights activist the Rev Al Sharpron, president of the National Action Network, which is headquartered in New York City, will give the keynote address on legal system issues impacting the city of Cleveland and Black America at a community rally in Cleveland at 7:30 pm on Friday, May 29 on Quincy Avenue at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church.
Organizers told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news, that over a thousand people are expected to attend the event.
The upcoming rally comes on the heels of a racist verdict issued on Saturday by Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell that acquitted White Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo of two counts of manslaughter.
O'Donnell fled the state immediately after his racist verdict, which has culminated in ongoing protests and at least 71 arrests of protesters. He remains in hiding, sources said.
Brelo was the only police officer charged out of 13, none of them Black, that gunned down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012 while slinging 137 bullets.
On Tuesday, the Rev Dr. Jawanza Colvin, senior pastor at Olivet, and officials of the Greater Cleveland Congregations led over a thousand people in a downtown rally at the Justice Center relative to the unjust verdict and what they said are racist and bias police policies and practices perpetuated through malfeasance and heightened police brutality and police murder against the Black community. Also at issue, said Colvin, is systemic problems in the legal system in general.
Other high profile Cleveland police murder cases include Tanisha Anderson, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Daniel Ficker, and Kenneth Smith.
O'Donnell, who is White and a documented thief who has stolen a wealth of homes from county residents for crooked judges and other corrupt elected officials, county officials and banks and mortgage companies such as JPMorgan Chase Bank, is currently under investigation by authorities for his role in a multi-million dollar scheme of theft of county homes via illegal foreclosures. Other thieves involved relative to the public corruption include University Heights police and University Heights Mayor Susan Infeld, chief foreclosure magistrate Stephen Bucha and his attorney wife of the law firm of Lerner, Sampson and Rothfuss, and Shaker Heights Municipal Court Judge K.J. Montgomery, who has Blacks that complain of the theft maliciously prosecuted in her court.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).