Cleveland Cop Michael Brelo acquitted, 71 protesters are arrested: White, corrupt, crazy and racist Judge John O'Donnell acquits White Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo of manslaughter charges against unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell....Activists to possibly picket racist O'Donnell at home and at work....Brelo fired 49 of 137 shots fired by 13 non Black cops...White county prosecutor Tim McGinty protected the other 12 cops from prosecution.... By Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news
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| Corrupt, crazy and racist Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell       
Pictured are Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (wearing beard and eye glasses), Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John P. O'Donnell (in sky blue tie), Cleveland Police Patrolman Michael Brelo (in blue shirt), Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty (in red-pink tie with polka dots), Community activist Art McKoy ( in red, black and green turban), 137 shots unarmed Cleveland police fatal shooting victim Malissa Williams (in white shirt), and 137 shots unarmed Cleveland police fatal shooting victim Timothy Russell ( in dark blue sweatshirt).By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief,Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
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CLEVELAND, Ohio- Corrupt, racist and crazy Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell on Saturday morning, May 23, read his verdict to a packed courtroom in the Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo manslaughter trial and freed him on all charges, namely two counts of voluntary manslaughter for shooting and killing two unarmed Black suspects two and a half years ago.
By Saturday night police in riot gear had arrested some 71 protesters, mainly in downtown Cleveland, and on charges primarily of of obstruction of justice and resisting arrest, many for scrimmages with police.
"It came down at 10 am this morning and they are protesting now," said local community activist Art McKoy, who has led rallies with other activist leaders calling for a conviction of Brelo, whom defense counsel, Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association legal counsel Patrick D' Angelo, and Cleveland attorney Fernando Mack, who is Black, said feared for his life at the time of the killing in 2012.
Brelo cried and hugged D'Angelo after the verdict, a verdict that many in the greater Cleveland Black community watching the saga said they were expecting due to intrinsic racism against Blacks in the legal system, and the routine privilege afforded to White cops that erroneously kill Black people with impunity.
McKoy said that protesting will be ongoing. Other activists are just as upset and believe, as McKoy does, that Brelo and the other 12 officers at issue are guilty. O'Donnell's controversial verdict, which was written last week, says that all 13 of the police officers, especially Brelo, are innocent.
"Judge O'Donnell is corrupt, racist, crazy and sexist, and will protect White cops that gun down innocent Blacks, or that subject us to harassment and other police brutality in general, at any cost," said Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads the Imperial Women Coalition.
"Community activists should now legally picket this corrupt, racist scum bag of a judge at work and at his home," said Coleman.
A journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio and who now edits Cleveland Urban News.Com, Coleman has led rallies around what has come to be known as the 137 shots case. Last week, O'Donnell sent six University Heights cops to Coleman's home in University Heights, a Cleveland suburb, to stalk her and to gun her down before the verdict pointing rifles and guns. And when she got away safely, and without anybody getting hurt, he had corrupt Shaker Heights Judge K.J. Montgomery, a Democratic friend of his, and of county prosecutor Tim McGinty, and police, harass her further, data show.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who is Black, and area Black clergy, led by United Pastors in Mission president the Rev Larry Harris, had called for calm after the verdict when community activists would not.
Brelo, 32-years-old and White like O'Donnell, gunned down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell in 2012. He fired 49 of the 137 shots that a total of 13 non-Black Cleveland cops fired to gun down the homeless couple. The other 12 went free of prosecution with support of prosecutor McGinty and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, both of whom are White, and both of whom are endorsed by local and state police unions.
Brelo is on administrative leave from the job without pay. Whether he will return to work with back pay remains to be seen.
O'Donnell said that he could not find beyond a reasonable doubt that the 49 shots Brelo fired killed Williams or Russell, whom 104 cops ultimately pursued following a car chase that began in downtown Cleveland on November 29, 2012 and ended in neighboring East Cleveland, an impoverished Black suburb of Cleveland. Prosecutors argued at trial that Brelo is guilty, even if the other 12 officers that did the shooting were not charged., a posture that many in the Black community that are upset over the verdict have also taken
Polices said later that Russell's car may have backfired and that they mistakenly believed that it was a gun shot, and that that precipitated the high speed car chase. Others have said that the shooting deaths were just a racist police ambush. The 13 killer cops proceeded to shoot and kill Russell and Williams, even though supervisors told them to back off, and the others, including some Black cops, complied.
The city settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $3 million to be split between the two families.
The civil litigation lawyer for the Malissa Williams family, David Malik, had called for calm. But attorney Terry Gilbert, who represents the estate of Russell, did not.
Brelo chose O'Donnell to hear the case in lieu of a jury, even after unsuccessfully asking Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor to remove him from the case for bias and corruption. That, say community activists, suggest that O'Donnell, a documented thief who has stolen a wealth of homes from county residents for crooked judges and other elected officials, county officials and banks and mortgage companies such as JPMorgan Chase Bank, could have cut a deal.
Also charged via county grand jury indictments were five White police supervisors, but on second degree misdemeanor charges of dereliction of duty. They have all pleaded not guilty and are sergeants Patricia Coleman, Randolph Daley, Jason Edens, Michael Donegan and Lt.Paul Wilson. And all of them are still employed and on the job.
All 12 Cleveland police officers that got off are still employed and on the job, and still face possible disciplinary charges, said Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams at a press conference after the grand jury indictment against Brelo came down last year.(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
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