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BEREA, Ohio- Hardly a week after being sidelined, Cleveland Browns lead quarterback Baker Mayfield, 26, and four other key players have been activated from the COVOD-19 quarantine list and will play in today's game against the Green Bay Packers at 4:30 pm, and under the leadership of head coach Kevin Stefanski, who returned Wednesday after roughly a week's leave relative to COVID-19.

All of the aforementioned missed Monday's game against the Las Vegas Raiders, a game the Browns lost 16-14.

A Browns spokesperson tweeted that "we have activated the following players from the reserve/COVID-19 list and made other roster moves:
- QB Baker Mayfield - QB Case Keenum - WR Jarvis Landry - CB AJ Green - DE Ifeadi Odengibo"

The NFL has announced changes to health and safety protocols due to increased COVID-19 cases among players and coaching staff nationwide.
"Effective immediately, all clubs will implement preventative measures, masking regardless of vaccination status.....eliminating in-person meals, and no outside visitors while on team travel,"  a spokesperson said in a statement on behalf of the NFL. "We will continue to strongly encourage booster shots as the most effective protection."
Mayfield criticized the NFL for vacillating on COVID-19 health and safety protocols as the Browns struggle with at least half of their roster out with COVID-19.
"Make up your damn mind on protocols. Showing up and making only 3 teams test?!? All so you can keep the game as scheduled to make money," Mayfield tweeted.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (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.

Former Minnesota cop Kim Potter found guilty on manslaughter charges for killing Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man....Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader

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Pictured are former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter and twenty-year-old Daunte Wright
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, associate publisher
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minnesota- A Minnesota jury on Thursday found former police officer Kim Potter guilty of both first and second degree manslaughter in the tragic shooting death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota earlier this year during a traffic stop arrest, Potter, who is White, facing up to 15 years behind bars under state guidelines. Wright was a biracial Black man.

The maximum sentence for first degree manslaughter is 15 years, and a $30,000 fine fine, and for second degree manslaughter, 10 years, and a $20,000 fine. Prosecutors say they will ask the judge for a sentence beyond the sentencing guidelines.

The largely White jury with one alternate was comprised of six men and six women, two  of them Black, two Asian American, and the other nine jurors White.

Supporters outside the courtroom were elated and chanted “guilty, guilty, guilty!”

The disgraced former cop who had been on the police force for 26 years was immediately handcuffed and taken into custody. She will be sentenced Feb 18 at 10 am before presiding judge Judge Regina Chu, who denied her attorney's request that she remain out of prison for the time being and revoked her $100,000 bond.

Prosecutors had asked the judge to deny bail pending appeal, saying that her family had already moved out of town.

Katie Bryant, Wright's mother, said after the trial that she felt "every single emotion that you could imagine" as the verdict was read. "I kind of let out a yelp, because it was built up in the anticipation of what was to come," she said.

Bryant said her family is grateful and that "the bigger issue is with policing."

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the case on behalf of the state and said after Thursday's  jury verdict that  Potter had been held accountable for Wright's death.

"Accountability is not justice. Justice is restoration. Justice would be restoring Daunte to life and making the Wright family whole again," Ellison told reporters.

The jury deliberated for 27 hours over a period of four days before reaching its celebrated verdict relative to the two week closely watched trial.

Wright was fatally shot by Potter, 49, on April 11 during a traffic stop over expired license plates, a dangling air freshener, and an attempted arrest for an outstanding arrest warrant in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. After a brief struggle with officers, the young Black man, whom police claim resisted arrest, was shot at close range. He then drove off a short distance, but his vehicle collided with another and hit a concrete barrier. Officers pulled his body out of his car and administered CPR but were unsuccessful in their attempts to revive him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

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The following day, police said that Potter meant to use her Taser, but accidentally grabbed her gun instead, striking Wright with one shot to his chest. Two days later, Potter and then Brooklyn Center police chief Tim Gannon, who had publicly called the shooting death an accident, resigned from their positions and Potter fled her home after her address was leaked on social media.


The shooting and claims by police and higher ups that it was an accident sparked heightened protests in Brooklyn Center and renewed ongoing demonstrations against police brutality in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, leading to citywide and regional curfews. Demonstrations also spread to cities across the United States.


A wrongful death lawsuit brought by Wright's family remains pending.  Wright, whose father is Black and mother, White, left behind an infant daughter.


Wright's  girlfriend, who was in the car with him when he was killed, was among those who testified at trial for the prosecution. She was visibly shaken if not hysterical at times as she recounted her version of the events that led to the deadly shooting of her boyfriend.
The defense argued at trial that Potter made a mistake and pulled her taser instead of her gun while prosecutors shot back, saying some mistakes have consequences and that Potter's so-called mistake was a crime of large magnitudes. At one point prosecutors suggested that Potter's alleged intention to use her taser was not even necessary as the defense claimed the former officer actually had a right to use deadly force, a contradiction brought forth even after Potter took the stand at trial and repeatedly cried and admitted her guilt and culpability.

Wright's shooting death, occurring simultaneously with the murder trial of George Floyd's killer a stone's throw away in a Minnesotacourtroom, has made Minneapolis and its metropolitan area, inclusive of the suburban city of Brooklyn Center, the epicenter of excessive force shooting deaths of unarmed Black men like Floyd and Wright.

Activists and Black leaders, including members of Congress, say it is a clear indictment relative to the nation's racist and inept legal system and its negative and oppressive impact on Black people, and their families


A veteran cop before he was fired after killing Floyd on May 25, 2020 following an arrest for alleged forgery over a counterfeit $20 bill, Derek Chauvin, 46 White, was convicted on On June 25, 2021 of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter before a jury in the Minnesota Fourth Judicial District Court and  sentenced to 2212 years in prison. He is appealing his case.

Three other police officers at the scene who did nothing while Chauvin held his knee on the neck of the handcuffed Floyd for more than nine minutes until he killed him were also fired. Former officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao are scheduled to be tried on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder All four officers faced federal civil rights charges In December 2021, Chauvin pleaded guilty earlier this month to federal charges of violating Floyd's civil rights by using unreasonable force and ignoring Floyd's

The city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Floyd's family.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (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 Saturday, 25 December 2021 04:21

Ohio's GOP governor signs anti-abortion bill Senate Bill 57 into law, a law that criminalizes abortion providers that fail to perform life saving care on a fetus when the fetus is what Republicans say is "born alive"

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Pictured from left: Ohio GOP and incumbent Governor Mike DeWine, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, who is a Democratic candidate for governor next year, among others, and Kellie Copeland, executive director for Naral Pro-Choice Ohio-

Columbus, Ohio- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday signed  Senate Bill 157 into law, Republican pushed legislation that makes it a crime for abortion providers in Ohio to fail to take measures to preserve the health of a fetus that survives an abortion or attempted abortion and creates a right of action for the affected mother to sue a person guilty of such activity.

Sponsored by state Sen. Terry Johnson (R-14), a McDermott Republican and former practicing obstetrician, the bill, which passed along party lines and is now state law, also creates new rules around ambulatory surgical facilities where abortions are attempting to be performed in order to ensure the health and safety of a fetus that remains after the abortion has been completed. It has been dubbed "the born alive bill" by conservatives, a law punishable by a first degree felony for physicians and abortion providers who fail to comply with its mandates. Abortion advocates say the law is absurd.

Both the Ohio Senate and the Ohio House of Representatives are controlled by Republicans who also hold every statewide office aside from three seats on the seven-member Ohio Supreme Court, including the offices of governor, state attorney general and secretary of state.

Opponents of the new law say it is unnecessary and nothing more than another effort to deny women in Ohio reproductive rights, a highly restrictive anti-abortion law that comes behind a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi that is before the the U.S. Supreme Court, and behind refusal earlier this month of the high court to put a temporary halt to  a new Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks and provides for a $10,000 bounty on the head of any person aiding with an abortion.

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, a Democratic candidate for governor next year who is among those who hope to unseat DeWine, the incumbent, was infuriated over the measure.

"Mike DeWine is once again showing his true colors, he is an extremist committed to outlawing abortion in our state," said Mayor Whaley. "Make no mistake – abortion is on the ballot next November. The last line of defense for reproductive freedom in Ohio is a pro-choice, Democratic governor and I'm proud to be that candidate."

Kellie Copeland, executive director of Naral Pro-Choice Ohio, said in a statement that SB57 is  "a dangerous anti-abortion bill that threatens to close two Southwest Ohio abortion clinics."

Copeland went on to say that the new law puts legislators between a patient and their doctor when a person is losing a pregnancy, forcing them to provide inappropriate and futile medical procedures.

"Instead of allowing that family to have a moment of privacy and begin the grieving process, Republicans think that legislative intervention is needed," said Copeland, who added that the law  makes it "practically impossible for abortion clinics in Dayton and Cincinnati to stay open for patients."

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (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 Sunday, 26 December 2021 12:26

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Pictured are Ohio GOP and incumbent Governor Mike DeWine, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley (pictured wearing red blouse), who is a Democratic candidate for governor next year, and Kellie Copeland, executive director for Naral Pro-choice Ohio

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com

Columbus, Ohio- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday signed  Senate Bill 157 into law, Republican pushed legislation that makes it a crime for abortion providers in Ohio to fail to take measures to preserve the health of a child born alive after an abortion and creates a right of action for the affected mother to sue a person guilty of such activity.

Sponsored by state Sen. Terry Johnson (R-14), a McDermott Republican and former practicing obstetrician, the bill also creates new rules around ambulatory surgical facilities where abortions are attempting to be performed in order to ensure the health and safety of a child when born alive after an abortion. It has been dubbed "the born alive bill" by conservatives, though fetuses are rarely "born alive." for lack of a batter word.

Opponents of the new law say it is nothing more that another attempt to deny women in Ohio and nationally abortion rights, a restrictive abortion law that comes behind and 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi that is before the the U.S. Supreme Court, and behind refusal earlier this month of the high court to put a temporary halt to  a new Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks and provides for a $10,000 bounty  on the heads of any person aiding with an abortion.

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, a Democratic candidate for governor next year who is among those who hope to unseat DeWine, the incumbent, was infuriated over the measure.

"Mike DeWine is once again showing his true colors, he is an extremist committed to outlawing abortion in our state," said Mayor Whaley. "Make no mistake – abortion is on the ballot next November. The last line of defense for reproductive freedom in Ohio is a pro-choice, Democratic governor and I'm proud to be that candidate."

Kellie Copeland, executive director of Naral Pro-Choice Ohio, said in a statement that SB57 is  "a dangerous anti-abortion bill that threatens to close two Southwest Ohio abortion clinics."

Copeland went on to say that the new law puts legislators between a patient and their doctor when a person is losing a pregnancy, forcing them to provide inappropriate and futile medical procedures.

"Instead of allowing that family to have a moment of privacy and begin the grieving process, Republicans think that legislative intervention is needed," said Copeland, who added thatthe law  makes it "practically impossible for abortion clinics in Dayton and Cincinnati to stay open for patients."

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (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 Thursday, 23 December 2021 18:21

Cleveland Mayor-elect Justin Bibb names key cabinet positions after previously naming his interim chief of police, Bibb the city's fourth Black mayor who will be sworn in on January 3, 2022...By Clevelandurbannews.com/ Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

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Pictured is Cleveland Mayor- elect Justin Bibb

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com


CLEVELAND, Ohio — Behind announcing the appointment of Deputy chief of police Wayne Drummond as interim chief of police last week to replace retiring chief Calvin Williams, Cleveland Mayor-elect Justin Bibb on Wednesday announced his first four cabinet appointments as follows.

  • Mark Griffin as the chief legal counsel
  • Sarah Johnson as chief communications officer
  • Paul Patton as chief human resources officer
  • Ryan Puente as chief government affairs Officer

Puente is a former executive director of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party who served under now Congresswoman Shontel Brown, also chair of the county Democratic party, and was Bibb's campaign manager.  All four of them will take the oath of office on Jan. 3.


"This an exciting time for our city and I am very pleased with the team we are building to lead Cleveland,” Mayor-elect Bibb said in a statement. “These top-level professionals all have exceptional qualifications, but even more importantly, they share our values of an inclusive, open, modern city hall that puts people first.”

Bibb said that he is “elevating human resources to a cabinet-level position, and separating the role of chief of communications and chief of government affairs to prioritize cultural change, communications and advocacy at the local, state and federal level, respectively.”

Bibb overwhelmingly won an election runoff last month against outgoing Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley, whom retiring four-term Black mayor Frank Jackson and roughly a third of city council supported, a shake up by most standards. The 34-year-old Black mayor-to-be, Cleveland's fourth Black mayor and a progressive newcomer and former banker who holds a law degree from Case Western Reserve University and has never held public office, will be sworn in on Jan. 3.


(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (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 Thursday, 23 December 2021 15:42

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