ClevelandUrbanNews.Com Blog, Ohio's Leader In Black Digital News

Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009 (National and Cleveland Ohio Area News) Cleveland, Oh journalist Kathy Wray Coleman was arrested by Middleburg Heights, Oh. police last night in what she says is retaliation for an upcoming protest against Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, who has harassed the journalist allegedly because of her writings in Cleveland's Call and Post Newspaper, a weekly that targets the Black community, and investigations around a federal corruption probe involving Cuyahoga County public officials. Cuyahoga County is the largest in Ohio and includes the predominantly Black city of Cleveland. Middleburg Heights is an overwhelmingly White suburb of Cleveland that Blacks fear in terms of illegal arrests and racial intimidation. According to Coleman, three police cars and numerous police swarmed her car at 9 pm last night without either probable cause or reasonable articulable suspicion and approached her att

Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009 (Regional and Local Cleveland, Ohio Area News) By The Endorsement Committee of The Determiner Weekly and Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of The Determiner Weekly and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network The Determiner Weekly has endorsed Issue 5 and rejected county reform Issue 6, following the lead of Black leaders of Cuyahoga County including U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-11), Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Ohio Rep. Barbara Boyd (D-9), and NAACP President George Forbes. The endorsements came at a meeting on Saturday with a panel of affiliates of the new online Black magazine such as editor Kathy Wray Coleman, new writer and columnist Genevieve Mitchell, Adilifu Sanyiaka, and William Clarence Marshall, an esteemed singer out of the Cleveland, Oh. area. The group also endorsed incumbent Cleveland, Oh. Mayor Frank Jackson over Bill Patmon, a former Cleveland City Council member. “The

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 (White House and Cleveland, Ohio Area News) By Kathy Wray Coleman (Editor of The Determiner Weekly and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network) The Determiner Weekly and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network have made the cut for President Obama's media list, which gives access to top level officials at the White House via telephone press conferences, including White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. . “We look forward to working with America's first African-American President and his media staff and others to provide worthy news across the Internet and elsewhere particularly to Ohioans since Ohio is a pivotal state where no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio,” said Coleman, editor of The Determiner Weekly and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network. During last year's Democratic Prima

Ohio Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher Ohio State Representative Barbara Boyd U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes Retired U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 (National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News) By Kathy Wray Coleman (Editor of The Determiner Weekly and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network) Ohio Democratic Lt. Governor Lee Fisher, who is Jewish, has been branded racist by bloggers on the Plain Dealer News Paper's online forum after yesterday announcing his support of Issue 6, a Cuyahoga County reform measure on the November ballot. The county charter revision proposal is opposed by practically every prominent Black leader from Ohio's largest county, including U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-11, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes and Black Women's Political Action Committee President and Ohio Rep. Barbara Boyd, D-9. If adopted by voters it

Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman Posted Sunday, October 25, 2009 (National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News) Cleveland, Oh. journalist Kathy Wray Coleman will get her day in court on a claim that she was maliciously prosecuted in the Shaker Heights, Oh. Municipal Court by the city of Beachwood Oh. and subjected to intentional infliction of emotional distress in retaliation for her community activism and her writings on alleged housing discrimination against Blacks in Shaker Heights in the Call and Post Newspaper, a Cleveland weekly that targets the Black community. The decision, issued last Thursday by a three-judge panel from the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals that consisted of judges Christine McMonagle, Patricia Ann Blackmon and Melody Stewart, reinstated the lawsuit relative to malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims against businesswoman Myrna R. Gill. In addition to Gill the

Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason Ohio State Representative Barbara Boyd Posted Saturday, October 17, 2009 (National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News) By Kathy Wray Coleman Editor of the Determiner Weekly and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network The President of the Cleveland Chapter NAACP said at a recent forum on the controversial county reform measure on the November ballot dubbed Issue 6 that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, a crafter of the proposal, allegedly said that he cannot help the fact that the Black community will not benefit from Issue 6, a charge Mason denies. “When I asked what are you are going to do for Black people and the 50 thousand Black children in Cleveland's schools he [Mason] said I cannot do anything about that,” said Forbes. “Ed Crawford said Black folks have to understand that there are more of us than them,” he added in referencing a member of the group that helped Mason derive Issue

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Bridget McCafferty Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman Posted Saturday, October 17, 2009 (National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News) A Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge has been sued for allegedly fixing a case at the alleged request of a county commissioner, and so has the commissioner himself. And in the thick of things a Cleveland area Black journalist says she is being harassed because of her investigations surrounding a county corruption probe. Both the judge and the commissioner at issue are under investigation in a federal corruption probe along with a host of others and several others have already pleaded guilty to taking bribes with respect to county contracts and other corruption related charges. Neither has been charged relative to the county corruption probe and the commissioner at issue has publicly denied any wrongdoing. Cuyahoga County Common P

Posted Friday, October 16, 2009 (National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News) Commentary By Kathy Wray Coleman Editor of The Determiner Weekly and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network I hate to see two Black men at each others throats as has occurred this week with Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and talented but conservative Cleveland Plain Dealer Columnist Phillip Morris. Nonetheless, it stirs up dialogue and increases readership in a country where few people read on a regular basis and even fewer internalize the high points of what is written. It also reminds us that Cleveland's Black children are still at risk educationally where the federal and state governments, unlike Jackson, have thrown them to the waste side. The long overdue debate is over the state of affairs of Cleveland's predominantly Black public school children. Jackson has taken on Morris and others at the PD for criticizing a student scholarship program for kids under his watch to attend Cl

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson Posted Thursday, October 15, 2009 (National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News) Dear Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson: This is to request your support relative to a blatant injustice that sends the message that Blacks, journalists and others can be unfairly prosecuted by the predominantly Black City of Cleveland and convicted of alleged crimes such as resisting arrest without the testimony of an accusing or arresting police officer, deputy sheriff or bailiff, in violation of the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution. As a Black man and former Cleveland City Council President representing the impoverished Ward 5 you know what it means to be disenfranchised and certainly at 62 years old you are familiar with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's where Blacks and others fought for equal opportunity and equal justice in this country with the leadership of the likes of African-Americans such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Angela Davis, The Reverend Dr. Martin

Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough Press Release For All Media Posted Wednesday, October 14, 2009 (Cleveland, Ohio Area News) The Carl Stokes Brigade, Black on Black Crime Inc., The Oppressed People's Nation and other grassroots organizations will rally on the steps of the Justice Center in Cleveland on Lakeside Ave., Friday, Oct. 23 at 4:00 pm. The protest is to demand that Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough dismiss a resisting arrest verdict that came against local freelance journalist Kathy Wray Coleman without the testimony of the arresting deputy sheriff, who is White, and to demand also that applicable cases against defendants be dismissed as required by law if they are denied their constitutional right under the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment to confront their accuser, particularly arresting police officers, bailiffs and deputy sheriffs. Longtime Community Activis

Posted Sunday, October 11, 2009 (Cleveland, Ohio Area News) By Genevieve Mitchell, Guest Columnist (Mitchell is a former vice president of the Cleveland Board of Education, a former candidate for Cleveland city mayor, editor of the newsletter "The Blackboard," and current host of the local Cleveland cable television program "The Carl Stokes Forum.") While few would doubt the need for accountability and oversight the battle for county government reform has reached a boiling point. With the November election only a few weeks away Cuyahoga County voters will have a chance to either support or reject the county reform measure known as Issue 6. At odds is not whether reform is necessary but what shall constitute “reform." Cuyahoga County is controlled by voter elected Democrats. This has been largely due to the great appeal of Democratic leadership. But in the wake of a county federal corruption probe attached to this election cycle that has been exacerbated v

Posted Friday, October 9, 2009 (Cleveland, Ohio Area News) A Cleveland area Black journalist was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest when the sole arresting officer did not testified and a prosecutor admitted in closing arguments at trial that such officer was available to testify but was not called to the stand, transcripts of proceedings reveal. At issue is a resisting arrest conviction against journalist Kathy Wray Coleman where her post trial attorney, Wayne Kerek, confirms that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution mandates compulsory process to cross examine witnesses against her. Case law makes an exception in some instances, if the charging witness is unavailable. Cleveland, Oh. Assistant city prosecutor Lorraine Coyne, the lead prosecutor in a criminal case brought by the city of Cleveland against Coleman, who says that she has been subjected to a malicious prosecution for her writings in the Call and Post Newspaper, a Cleveland weekly that ta

Posted October 8, 2009 (National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News) A White Cleveland Municipal Court Judge who refuses to dismiss a resisting arrest verdict against a Black journalist that came without the testimony of the arresting officer, alleged impropriety by her since removed trial lawyer, accusations of prosecutorial misconduct by an all White prosecution and questionable instructions to the jury is under fire from grassroots organizations and the new attorney for the journalist. “I have never ever seen a person convicted of an alleged offense such as resisting arrest where the defendant was convicted without the testimony of the arresting officer,” said Wayne Kerek, the attorney for Cleveland area journalist Kathy Wray Coleman who appeared in the case after the trial judge dismissed Coleman's former attorney, Carole A., Lohr, following alleged impropriety. “It is possible that a prosecution of this nature could have been motivated by some form of insidious racial animus and th

Posted Tuesday, October 6, 2009 (National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News) By Kathy Wray Coleman (Editor of The Determiner Weekly (www.determinerweekly.com) and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network) East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer told "Inside Edition" in an interview that aired this evening that it is in fact he in controversial photos that show the mayor of the predominantly Black suburb of Cleveland, Oh. in drag with panties, lipstick, high heels, pantyhose, a wig, and all. “That is me in those pictures,” Brewer said on the nationally syndicated television show, while adding that he did it for his girlfriend. “I am requesting a criminal investigation.” That admission has caused a prominent East Cleveland activist to demand his resignation. “Eric Brewer has hated on many people for a long time in a very evil way and finally the chickens have come home to roost, and have landed squarely on his head,” said Art McKoy, founder of the East C