Cleveland community activists to rally May 14 at 3:30 pm at the Justice Center to demand criminal charges against Cleveland police that killed Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, and the 12 that escaped prosecution for killing Malissa Williams and Tim Russell with 137 bullets.....By Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news
CLEVELAND, Ohio- Greater Cleveland community activists groups, led by Puncture the Silence and Revolution Books, will rally at 3:30 pm on Thursday, May 14 at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center on Lakeside Avenue in downtown Cleveland to demand state and federal criminal charges in the police killings of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, and 12 of 13 non- Black cops that gunned down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012.
"We want criminal prosecutions for Tamir, Tanisha, and the 12 police officers that killed Tim and Malissa and have not yet been prosecuted," said longtime community activist Bill Swain.
Rice was gunned down by police last November for sporting a toy gun at a public park on the city's west side, and Anderson, a bi-polar-woman who like Rice was Black, was slammed to the sidewalk and killed last year at her home on the city's east side while in police custody.
The 12 cops at issue were among 13-non Black Cleveland cops who gunned down unarmed Williams, 30, and Timothy Russell, 43, following a high speed car chase in 2012 that began in downtown Cleveland and ended in a middle school parking lot in neighboring East Cleveland. No gun was found at the deadly and unprecedented scene that has caused racial unrest in Cleveland, a largely Black major American city, and in East Cleveland, an impoverished Black Cleveland suburb on the verge of collapse.
The only patrolman charged in the Williams-Russell shooting was Michael Brelo, who is on trial now before common pleas judge John O'Donnell, and faces two counts of voluntary manslaughter for firing 49 of the 137 shots.
Activists want the other 12 police officers charged criminally and have said that regardless, Brelo must be convicted since he participated in the shooting too. The issue, they say, is not solely how many shots were fired by Brelo, but that all 13 are guilty as sin, and for, in the least, criminally negligent behavior that rises to the level of manslaughter.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty and Ohio Attorney General Mike Dewine, both of whom are White, have repeatedly lobbied in support of the 12 officers that escaped prosecution, and both McGinty and DeWine were endorsed by local and state police unions.(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
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