Pictured are 12-year-old fatal Cleveland police shooting victim Tamir Rice, and his mother Samaria Rice. Samaria Rice took center-stage at the symbolic March on Washington on Saturday, December 13, 2014 along side of the mothers of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin. Garner and Brown were also killed by police, Brown, 18, in Ferguson Missouri, and Garner, in New York City. Martin was killed by Florida nightwatchman George Zimmerman, whom a largely White jury set free. Saturday's march in the nation's capital was sponsored by the Rev Al Sharpton and his New York-based National Action Network.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com, and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and newspaper blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist, educator and 21-year investigative journalist who trained at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio for 17 years. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
WASHINGTON, D.C.-A day after a Cuyahoga County coroner formally ruled the police killing of her son a homicide, the strong Black mother of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black boy slain by police on Nov. 22 for sporting a toy pellet gun at a city park on Cleveland's largely White west side, was center-stage with the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner, and the mothers of a host of other Black boys and men that have fallen to police killings.
'"To all of the families experiencing the same pain as me, we will have justice of a God of our understanding," said Samaria Rice, Tamir's mother, who took to the national stage Saturday afternoon at symbolic March on Washington.
The elder Rice has has said that she wants the White cop that killed her son late last month summarily convicted.
Sponsored by the Rev Al Sharpton and his New York-based Civil Rights group the National Action Network, and supported by a host of other grassroots and Civil rights organizations, and unions from across the country, the event was billed as a gathering against police brutality, repression, racism, and America's unyielding attack against Black men and Black male children, notwithstanding that Black women are becoming more and more victimized by police too.
It drew thousands to the nation's capital, and to marches and other events across the country that same day, including in New York City, and Boston, where people got arrested after a standoff with police.
Just 17-years-old at his death in 2012, Martin was unarmed and killed in a Florida suburb by volunteer nightwatchman George Zimmerman.
The unarmed Brown, 18, was gunned down in August by a White former cop in Ferguson, Missouri. And Garner was killed earlier this year when a group of Staten Island cops strangled him to death with a choke hold as he held up his hands and begged them to let him breath.
In Zimmerman's case, a majority White jury set him free, and in the instances of Garner and Brown, cops escaped criminal charges by largely White grand juries.
Rioting broke out in Ferguson in response to the grand jury decision, and amid disgust with the nation's legal system and its mistreatment of Black people, including Black children, not to mention a war on the poor.
Led by Donnie Pastard, a member of the grassroots groups Black on Black Crime Inc and the Carl Stokes Brigade, and also a retired school teacher, some greater Cleveland community activists took the D.C bus trip, more than 50 of them, said Pastard.
Pastard told Cleveland Urban News.Com as the buses were in route home Saturday night that the gathering was moving, and in fact legendary, as the stories of arbitrary police killings of Black people in Cleveland over nearly three decades were told to reporters. They include, said Pastard, Michael Pipkens in 1992, Brandon McCloud in 2005, and whom police put 12 bullets into as the teen lay in a closet, and Tanisha Anderson, whom Cleveland police slammed to the sidewalk and killed last month while she was in handcuffs at her home.
Also, said Pastard, they mentioned Malissa Williams and Tim Russell, two unarmed Blacks gunned down in 2012 by 13 non- Black Cleveland police officers slinging 137 bullets following a car chase from downtown Cleveland to neighboring East Cleveland.
"It was moving," said Pastard. "And memorable."
Seasoned Cleveland activist Ada Averyhart, a member of several grassroots groups the Carl Stokes Bridade and the Imperial Women Coalition, is a 50-year community activist who says that something must be done about police brutality in Cleveland and that she still supports Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who has come under fire from the Call and Post Newspaper, a Black Cleveland weekly, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper. Both newspapers have taken on Jackson, a Black mayor in his third term, in editorials, to say the least, and partly for his stubborn stance in hanging onto White police officials while Cleveland is in a crisis, namely safety director Michael McGrath, a former police chief, and former safety director Martin Flask, now a chief executive assistant to the mayor.
Both Flask and Martin retired a couple of years ago and were re-hired by Jackson to get their pensions and six figure salaries.
Two weeks ago U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced findings by the U.S. Department of Justice of systemic problems in the largely White Cleveland Police Department, from illegal deadly force, to vicious pistil whippings of adults and children, and "cruel and unusual punishment against the mentally ill.
" If some changes are not made it is going to get worse before it gets better," said Averyhart, 80. "If Mayor Jackson has any scruples at all, he has got to try and change some things."
Averhart said also that Jackson could use some help with his efforts to reform the police department.
"I know he cannot do it all by himself and he needs help," said Averyhart. "I think he is doing a good job as mayor, and at least he's trying." (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)