Cleveland City Council to hold public meeting on DOJ report of police brutality and deadly force on Thursday, December 18 at the Harvard Community Services Center in Cleveland, rallies scheduled for 10 am on December 20 and 21 for Tamir Rice at Cudell Recreation Center

Cleveland Ward 1 Councilman Terrell Pruitt

Cleveland Councilman and Safety Committee Chairman Matt Zone

 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) 

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland City Council Safety Committee Chairman Matt Zone, a west side councilman, and Cleveland Ward 1 Councilman Terrell Pruitt,  will host an open-to-the-public meeting on Thursday, Dec 18 a 6 pm at the Harvard Community Services Center on Cleveland's east side around the report issued from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder two and a half weeks ago that found systemic problems in the largely White Cleveland Police Department. (Editor's note: The Harvard Community Services Center is located at 18240 Harvard Avenue, which is blocks from John F. Kennedy High School. Other Cleveland councilpersons, including Zack Reed and Jeff Johnson and Council President Kevin Kelley, are expected to attend, organizers said yesterday).

The largely Black Ward 1 is the city's largest voting block and has a staunch middle class segment of voters. 

Community activists said that they will attend Thursday's meeting, which is the first of four community meetings scheduled by city council in response to the DOJ report. The next session will be at 6 pm on Tuesday, Dec 30 at Sagrada Familia Church at 7719 Detroit Avenue on the city's west side. 

The DOJ's findings on gross impropriety by Cleveland police, which came following a 20-month investigation, are damning, from illegal deadly force, to vicious pistil whippings of adults and children, and "cruel and unusual punishment against the mentally ill."

Tamir Rice

The controversial report comes on the heels of recent arbitrary police killings in Cleveland, including Tanisha Anderson, whom police killed three weeks ago while she was in custody, and 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was slain by police on Nov. 22 for sporting a toy pellet gun at a public park on the city's largely White west side.

Rallies and vigils are also set by extended family members and community activists for 10 am on Saturday, December 20, and Sunday, December 21 for Rice at the Cudell Recreation Center on the city's largely White west side where the Black boy was slain under a gazebo. The events have been dubbed the Cleveland-Ferguson Connection as distant relatives of Rice are allegedly bringing buses from Missouri to the rallies in Cleveland this weekend.

In 2012, 13-non Black Cleveland police officers gunned down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Tim Russell slinging 137 bullets, a celebrated shooting that followed a car chase that began in downtown Cleveland and ended in neighboring East Cleveland. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)