CLEVELAND,Ohio- Cleveland Urban News.Com News Brief: By Kathy Wray Coleman, publisher, editor-in-chief
CLEVELAND, Ohio-Minister Robert "Brother Bob" Saffold (pictured in solid blue tie)), overseer of the Nazareth Missions Inc, will moderate a community forum headlined by Famed Ohio Criminal Defense Attorney Terry Gilbert (pictured in brown suit and eye glasses) at 5 pm on Thursday, Feb 21 at Lil Africa in Cleveland, 6816 Superior Ave, for community activists groups and other community members to discuss Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath and deadly police shootings in the wake of the deadly 137 bullets police shooting last year of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams (pictured) and Timothy Russell (pictured in sweat gear). (Editor's note: Community activists have repeatedly called for felony murder charges against the group of Cleveland police officers that gunned down Williams and Russell late last year following a police chase from Cleveland to the neighboring majority Black impoverished suburb of East Cleveland. Both were gunned down gangsta- style with 134 rounds of ammunition and with one cop literally standing a top Russell's 1979 Chevrolet Malibu and shooting 48 rounds through the front windshield).
Councilman T. J. Dow (pictured in blue suit with blue tie) will introduce Brother Bob and will give the welcome since the forum is in his Cleveland Ward 7. For more info and to speak at the open meeting call The Imperial Women at 216-659-0473 or by email at editor@clevelanddurbannews.com, or call Brother Bob Saffold at 216-333-7299, or reach him by email at garth_saffold@att.net.
Ohio State Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10) said that he will speak at the event.
Gilbert has won record breaking court settlements on police deadly force cases and represents the Russell estate around the 137 bullets deadly shooting, and a host of other people victimized or gunned down by Cleveland police. He will also give his views at the meeting on systemic problems and allegations of institutional racism that have plagued the Cleveland Police Department for decades.
"When Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath says that there are no systemic problems in the Cleveland Police Department he is in a dream world," said Gilbert.
Sponsoring groups for the for forum include Cleveland Urban News.Com, Lil Africa, The Imperial women, The Cleveland African-American Museum, Peace in the Hood, The Black Contractors Association, The Oppressed People's Nation, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, Ohio Family Rights, The Urban Education Strategy Group, The National Association for Parental Equality, The People's Forum, The Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, The Carl Stokes Brigade, Black on Black Crime Inc, The Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, The Joaquin Hicks Real People's Movement, The Bronaugh Sisters Committee, Organize Ohio, The Family Connection Center, The Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign and Revolution Books. For more information call 216-659-0473.
Activists will also talk about other tragic police shootings of greater Cleveland, and the impact of high unemployment on crime in predominantly Black major American cities.
Activists said that they will vote at the forum on whether there are systemic problems in the Cleveland Police Department, a controversial subject, though data show repeatedly that there has been dissension between police and the Black community for years. This data is more notably reflected relative high profile cases such as the police killing of Michael Pipkins in 1992, the killing of unarmed Black teen Brandon McCloud , who was shot by Cleveland police some 12 times in 2005 when they entered his home with a warrant over an alleged altercation with a pizza man, and the Imperial Avenue Murders that saw 11 Black women raped and murdered on Cleveland's largely Black east side by since convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell.
Sowell, 52, was captured and released from police custody in 2008 only to thereafter rape and murder the last six of his 11 dismembered victims. He was recaptured a year later and convicted in 2011 of 82 of 83 counts, including multiple counts of aggravated murder. The former marine now sits on death row while his convictions are on appeal.
Other high profile cases include a 27-year Parma , Ohio man and father of two named Daniel Ficker who was gunned down at his Parma home in 2011 when two Second District Cleveland police officers left Cleveland and drove to Parma and waited outside of Ficker's home claiming he allegedly stole some jewelry at a Cleveland house party earlier that day that was never found, Gilbert said.
The unarmed Ficker was White, a rare but also important case where data show that most Cleveland police shooting and police brutality victims are Black, and a disproportionate number of them are Black males. Another case is that of then 20-year-old aspiring rapper Kenneth Smith, Gilbert said, whom Cleveland police allegedly stopped while he was driving his car in downtown Cleveland, snatched out of the car and shot in the head with three witnesses watching in shock. Cleveland police claim that Smith might have fired a gun into the air after leaving a Cleveland night club earlier the night of the shooting.
Activists will also discuss the Rebecca Whitby case , a 20-year-old Collinwood neighborhood woman arrested, jailed , maliciously prosecuted and beaten and called nigger by Cleveland fifth police in 2010 around a family quarrel, and the Bronaugh sisters case, then Collinwood High School students arrested at the school by Cleveland police in 2010, jailed, and maliciously prosecuted for protesting school closings and teacher layoffs . (Editor's Note: The Bronaugh sisters were both exonerated with both malicious criminal cases ultimately dismissed).
"The purpose of the meeting is to give the community a forum and then take a vote on the police chief," said Saffold, whom activists chose to moderate the event because he is also a community activist and is not a Black elected official that can be more easily targeted by the establishment for standing up for the community on issues of pertinent public concern.
Saffold said that the forum will be fair, that it is open to the public, and that it will give the community an opportunity to voice concerns that other groups would not provide on whether McGrath is still suited to run the Cleveland Police Department, which is less that 26 percent Black, and whether systemic problems are rampant in the Cleveland Police Department to the detriment of the greater Cleveland community.
Community Activist Genevieve Mitchell , who is also a member of the Cleveland NAACP legal redress committee, will read a petition for redress of grievances around the deadly shootings of Williams and Russell that took place the night of Nov 29., 2012.
Williams and Russell were gunned down following a police chase from the Cuyahoga County Justice Center in Cleveland that went on for some 23 minutes until a group of Cleveland police officers, 13 White and 1 Hispanic, finally cornered the car near a middle school in East Cleveland and shot at it 137 times.
The petition, said Mitchell, also deals with a host of other area deadly police shootings, and seeks intervention by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Community activists also want a Congressional hearing around the unprecedented murders of Williams, 30, and Russell, 43, both of whom died at the scene of the crime, and relative to other deadly shootings by Cleveland police.
Other speakers for the open community forum include members of the family of the shooting victims and others victimized by Cleveland police, Peace in the Hood Leader Khalid Samad, Black Contractors Association Leader Ken Bender, Black on Black Crime Vice President Al Porter, Revolution Books Representative Bill Swain, Carl Stokes Brigade President David Patterson, Imperial Women Leader Kathy Wray Coleman, Oppressed People's Nation Leader Ernie Smith, Ohio Family Rights Leader Roz McAllister, Family Connection Center Leader Prisscilla Cooper, Cleveland African-American Executive Director Frances Caldwell, Community Activist Willie Stokes, Entrepreneur Michael Nelson, Urban Education Strategy Group Leader Gerald Henley, and Stop Targeting Ohio Poor Leaders Dr Stuart Robinson and Valerie Robinson.
A community discussion will also occur at the open-to-the-public event.
Bender, who says Black contractors of greater Cleveland are continually disenfranchised and denied contracts and employment on lucrative contracts such as the Cleveland Horseshoe Casino and the upcoming Medical Mart, said that he will talk about the relationship to high unemployment and crime in largely Black major American cities.
CLEVELAND, Ohio- Flanked by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (D-11) (pictured), a Warrensville Hts. Democrat whose majority Black 11th congressional district includes the city of Cleveland and its eastern suburbs, announced introduction of federal legislation to aid states and cities in addressing the need to demolish foreclosed, vacant and abandoned properties that have become eyesores to the community during a press conference last week on Cleveland's east side with GOP Congressman Dave Joyce ((pictured) (R-14) and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (pictured) (D-9) of Toledo, who are also sponsors of the bill.
Organizers of a community forum on Thursday said those in attendance voted for Chief McGrath (pictured) to resign after the investigation into the deadly police chase and shooting in November.
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