By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor-n-Chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com
CLEVELAND, Ohio- The Imperial Women and other community activists groups have voted to picket the offices of the Cleveland NAACP On April 25 at its headquarters at 2131 Stokes Blvd. in Cleveland if an open legal redress committee meeting to address deadly shootings by Cleveland police, Cuyahoga County foreclosure fraud, judicial impropriety and a host of other community issues that NAACP officials promised to hold for the past nine weeks is not scheduled by next week.
"We have been patient enough," said Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads The Imperial Women and said the protest will occur at 5 pm on Thursday, April 25 outside the Cleveland NAACP building near John Hay High School on Stokes Blvd.. "If the Cleveland NAACP president and these people holding the realm on these committees still want to preclude meetings to protect the establishment against the interests of the Black community they should either step down or we shall call for their resignations through free speech pickets at the local headquarters." (For more information call The Imperial Women at 216-659-0473. Bring protest signs, please).
Some 80 community activists met with Cleveland NAACP Legal Redress Committee Chairman Una Keenon, a retired East Cleveland Municipal Court judge, and Ohio ACLU Legal Director James Hardiman at a community forum on Feb 4 and then attended the regular Cleveland NAACP meeting held in March. Activist groups represented at both meetings include The Imperial Women, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, The Cleveland African American Museum, The Oppressed People's Nation, Organize Ohio, The Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, The Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, The Cleveland Black Contractors Group, The People's Forum, The Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, Peace in the Hood, Ohio Family Rights, The National Organization for Parental Equality, The Carl Stokes Brigade and Black on Black Crime Inc.
At the March regular Cleveland meeting activists again sought help on issues ranging from documented foreclosure fraud by judges and since fired county sheriff Bob Reid, jobs, and deadly shootings by Cleveland police of unarmed people including 137 bullets victims Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell, Daniel Ficker, 27 and Kenneth Smith, 20.
Attorney Terry Gilbert, who represents the families of Russell, Ficker and Smith, attended the March meeting with community activists and so did family members of Williams, Ficker and Smith, among others.
Since the meetings the FEDS have come to Cleveland to investigate malfeasance and systemic problems in the Cleveland Police Department
Cleveland NAACP President the Rev Hilton Smith, a vice president for the corporate entity of Turner Construction Company, promised to help and told community activists and shootings victims families at the March meeting that assistance was coming. But since then, said Coleman, he has allegedly directed Keenon not to hold any legal redress committee meetings that might offend Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, Cleveland police, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, corrupt judges and the White establishment. And, added Coleman, he now refuses to return telephone calls made to him by community activists but does allegedly call back people like McGinty, a former common pleas Irish judge whom community activists want to step down from addressing the Williams-Russell 137 bullets shooting because he took campaign monies and was endorsed by The Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association for his win in 2012 for the county prosecutor seat.
Ohio state Rep. Bill Patmon (pictured) (D-10), a former Ward 8 councilman who lost a bid for mayor against Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson in 2009. Patmon is livid over an amended redistricting map passed by city council on Wednesday that reduces city council from 19 to 17 seats beginning next year, and after this year's elections for city council and mayor. The state lawmaker says that the new map disenfranchises Glenville residents in Wards 8 and 9 on Cleveland's largely Black east side, and Hispanics in Ward 14 on the city's majority White west side. The amended map combines Wards 8 and 9 into a new Ward 9 and eliminates west side Ward 16 to reduce city council from 19 to 17 seats as required by a voter adopted charter amendment that sees reductions based upon declining population demographics. Patmon raised the same objections to the original map passed by city council two weeks ago.
