Carl Stokes Brigade Calls On Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson To Investigate Alleged Police Brutality And Malicious Prosecutions Of Black Women And Girls
The "Trio"
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson
Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough
From the Metro Desk of the Determiner Weekly.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
Honorable Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson
Cleveland City Hall
601 Lakeside Ave.
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
From: The Carl Stokes Brigade, a grassroots organization that fights for the little people on issues of public concern such as race and sex discrimination, police brutality, education, housing, and racial disparities in the courts and other justice system venues
Re: Issues of public concern regarding the malicious prosecution by the City of Cleveland and/or alleged police brutality against protesting Collinwood High School student Destini Bronaugh and her 17-year-old sister; the harassment and malicious prosecution of local Black Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman; the harassment and alleged police brutality against college student Rebecca Whitby; and, the harassment of Rebecca Whitby 's mother, who also goes by the name of Rebecca Whitby
Dear Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson:
Members of the Carl Stokes Brigade voted at its meeting this month to send a letter to you relative to the disenfranchisement of Black women and a girl as noted above, namely Destini Bronaugh and her 17-year old sister, Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman, Rebecca Whitby, and Rebecca's mother, who also goes by the name of
mayor of the predominantly Black major metropolitan City of Cleveland we seek your support as to this unprecedented harassment of Black women in a municipality that is 57 percent Black and largely female.
It appears that the aforementioned are victims of police brutality by Cleveland police and/or malicious prosecution by the City of Cleveland at the hands of Law Director Robert Triozzi, whom we believe should not be determining criminal charges on behalf of the city in lieu of Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez. On the latter issue we would herein request that you direct Mr. Triozzi to cease and desist, particularly where evidence points without a doubt to the malicious prosecution of Destini Bronaugh, a 19-year-old Cleveland schools student, and Kathy Wray Coleman, a 16-year local journalist, former public school teacher and respected community activist. Mr. Triozzi is a law director, not a prosecutor, and we ask that you stop him from bringing criminal charges, many of which are brought without the mandated probable cause finding, against Blacks, women and others on behalf of the City of Cleveland.
We believe that Triozzi's actions against Destini and Ms. Coleman are for political reasons, and due to perceived racism, sexism and malfeasance. Specially, in the case of Destini Bronaugh, a Black Collinwood High School student, Mr. Triozzi's charges on behalf of the City of Cleveland, which came in retaliation for Destini having spoken out on Cleveland schools issues of public concern, are unprecedented, unconstitutional and uncalled for in the twenty-first century. Has the pendulum swung back to the 1960's as to what is happening to Blacks and women in the predominantly Black City of Cleveland?
Destini Bronaugh, who on May 14, 2010 was brutally arrested by White male Cleveland Fifth District Police officers along with her 17-year-old sister, and subsequently indicted on the since dropped state criminal charges, is now the victim of Triozzi's wrath of misdemeanor charges and, according to community activists organizations, including the Brigade, the target of retaliation by Cleveland city officials and others. That retaliation, we believe, is in response to a student-organized walkout at Collinwood High School on May 14, 2010 to protest the layoffs of 545 district teachers and the closings of 14 of Cleveland's public schools. Twelve of those community schools are on the predominantly Black East side of Cleveland and educational stakeholders, including Cleveland schools students, should be able to voice concerns on these issues without the threat of possible prison time on malicious criminal charges leveled by the City of Cleveland.
Destini Bronaugh was arrested after she questioned the arrest of her sister on the never used day-time curfew violation charge during the protest, even though both she and her sister were put out of school after going back in at a teacher's request during the protest. And the curfew violation charge has since been dismissed by a Juvenile Court judge. Destini was initially charged by the State of Ohio with felony assault and resisting arrest, both dropped a week later by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason due to a lack of probable cause after a bogus indictment on the charges by a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury. Triozzi then brought the pending malicious and unfounded charges of misdemeanor resisting arrest and obstruction of official business against Destini in retaliation.
The Rev. Dr. Marvin McMickle, a former Cleveland NAACP President and prior Cuyahoga County Jury Foreman, branded the Grand Jury indictment process an “apartheid venue” where Blacks are maliciously indicted in a disproportionate fashion and often in the absence of the required probable cause finding. Please seek a comprehensive investigation of that process for the betterment of the Cleveland community.
We are also requesting that all charges be dismissed against Collinwood High School teen Destini Bronaugh and would seek an internal investigation of police around the treatment by police of both Destini and here sister, both of whom are represented by prominent Cleveland attorney Terry Gilbert. Though the younger Bronaugh girl faces charges in Juvenile Court, any and all allegations of criminal wrongdoing against these girls interferes with their futures. Nothing about the incident in question suggests in the least that either of them has violated any city ordinance or state statute. Have you watched the video of the arrest of the girls that has garnered over 13,000 hits on YouTube under the title “Cleveland Police Brutalize Student Protesters?” If not, please do so before responding to this letter.
Why was Destini jailed in the county with felons after she was arrested rather than taken a block away from the school to the Fifth District Police Station? Please investigate this issue and discipline any all city employees, including police, that are responsible for throwing this 19-year-old in the county jail solely for intimidation purposes.
We cannot allow city officials and others an opportunity to destroy Black children for sinister reasons and because they exercise their right to free speech as embodied under the free speech clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Please join us in this noble fight for fair play and this effort to retain constitutional guarantees for our children in the midst of a clear fallout between Cleveland schools officials, the city, and the Cleveland Teachers Union that has put the freedom of two of the city's innocent Black girls at risk via Triozzi's apparent negligence, his retaliatory motives, and his outright insensitivity to Blacks and women.
Turning to the issues as to Ms. Coleman, city officials should be ashamed of themselves. Ms. Coleman was maliciously prosecuted by the City of Cleveland after Triozzi signed the charges because county prosecutor Mason would not agree to the illegal activity of malicious prosecution by the State of Ohio.
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Keough was arbitrarily selected to hear the Coleman malicious prosecution case in violation of the local rules of the Cleveland Municipal Court, which require that the initial assignment of a judge is by lot. She has also been assigned arbitrarily to hear the Destiny Bronaugh case, raising questions as to the propriety of the assignment processes for judges in the Cleveland Municipal Court where Triozzi was once a sitting judge, as well as the relationship between Triozzi and Judge Keough to this process.
The charges that were before Keough, which in addition to resisting arrest include making false alarms, aggravated disorderly conduct and obstruction of official business, were filed on behalf of the City of Cleveland on Sept. 30 2008, two months after Coleman was released from the county jail without charges via an arrest in the Justice Center in Cleveland on Aug 7 of 2008. After holding her for four days in the county jail, where she says she was harassed over 38 articles on race issues written by the journalist and published in the Call and Post Newspaper and held naked by a disgruntled male supervisor, Triozzi intervened months later with a malicious prosecution by the City of Cleveland as to the arrest itself, activity initiated via a peculiar relationship where Judge Keough is illegally assigned such cases, followed by an endorsement by city officials for her current run for an open seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals.
Coleman's attorney Wayne Kerek, has said in pleadings before Judge Keough that the judge allegedly promoted the illegal resisting arrest verdict with illegal jury instructions, even though sole arresting White male peace officer Gerald Pace did not even accuse Coleman of resisting his arrest or testify at trial. Thus, Coleman was denied her constitutional right under the Sixth Amendment to confront her non-existent accuser where, by law, the charge should have been dismissed. Since we are sure that you believe in this fundamental constitutional right of confrontation, which was required even before Blacks could vote in this country, we would request that Triozzi immediately move for dismissal as to the illegal resisting arrest verdict.
A host of other illegalities were alleged to have occurred in the two day trial held before Judge Keough last May where Ms. Coleman was exonerated by a jury of all but the resisting arrest charge. She has yet to be sentenced on the illegal resisting arrest verdict. She awaits a hearing seeking dismissal of it as the law provides, particularly since she was denied her fundamental right to confront the arresting officer who sided with Coleman and says no resisting arrest ever occurred. Triozzi is well aware of those illegalities and Judge Keough has retaliated in an unheard of fashion that brings the integrity of the entire Cleveland Municipal Court into question. Might you question the judicial impropriety that appears obvious to the ordinary person and possibly real to you as a former assistant city prosecutor and current chief political leader of the City of Cleveland?
We also take issue as to what appears to be an ongoing attempt by Judge Keough to destroy Ms. Coleman, and since you have endorsed Judge Keough this year for an open seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals, please ask this runaway judge to cease her harassment of Coleman, which includes illegal jailing and the blatant disregard of the law. How can this judge sentence a Black person for allegedly resisting the arrest of a White male arresting officer who did not accuse her of it where he and Ms. Coleman are the only witnesses to the arrest, and she legitimately took the stand at trial and denied the charge. How far back are we going in rekindling the unconstitutional activity that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's so fiercely sought to negate? Do the statutory and constitutional rights of Black women and Black girls mean anything to city officials and the police at issue?
Of other concern is that Judge Keough refuses to allow Kerek to withdraw as paid counsel of record for Ms. Coleman even though he is slated to testify against his client in an unrelated case and the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility mandates his withdrawal. This too is unconstitutional where instead of disqualifying Kerek, Judge Keough is trying to force him on Ms. Coleman at her scheduled illegal sentencing on the illegal resisting arrest verdict that she refuses to throw out in compliance with the law. This and other activity of the judge bring her fitness for the bench into question and it clearly reveals a vendetta against Ms. Coleman.
Will you stand with us in questioning why Black women and Black girls are not afforded the constitutional guarantees slated as to their non-Black and non -female counterparts,? though we question whether White men and White boys have ever been subjected to the racist and sexist activity that the women victims addressed via this correspondence to you have been forced to endure?
As to the case of college student Rebecca Whitby, 24, and her mother, also named Rebecca Whitby, we have concerns relative to this egregious matter too. The Whitby cases arose when the younger Whitby's father, Timothy Walker, allegedly summoned police to the family home, then in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood, to mediate his request that his daughter not drive her car while allegedly slightly inebriated. When police found things allegedly okay they allegedly took the position that somebody had to be arrested just because they were called, ultimately arresting the younger Whitby, who was allegedly jailed and released without charges after an alleged police beating.
After the Whitby's filed internal charges against police the charges were brought against the younger Whitby and her mother, 47, was subsequently charged. Grassroots activists say she merely put her body over her daughter's to minimize the alleged beating. The younger Whitby is currently facing a host of bogus charges brought by the State of Ohio, including assault on two White male Cleveland Fifth District police officers. She is also charged with aggravated robbery for allegedly single-handedly stealing the guns of these two policemen. Both of the Whitby's have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Why is it that the Fifth District police are continually accused of brutalizing Black women and girls, including the Collinwood High School students mentioned early on in this correspondence? Does this concern you?
What is extremely puzzling about the Whitby cases is that an elderly White neighbor says she witnessed the policemen in question beat the younger Whitby without just cause and call her a "nigger" the night in question, and neither Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGraft nor Safety Director Martin Flask, both of whom are White and male like Triozzi, and of whom are all appointed by you, has launched an investigation around these serious allegations. Cleveland is not “Mississippi Burning” and we do not expect allegations of “nigger calling” and alleged police beating of Black women and Black girls to be swept under the rug. Please initiate an immediate investigation around this matter.
Cleveland has a city ordinance as to violations of constitutional guarantees, including the denial of equal protection under the law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The ordinance also precludes acts of racism, sexism, and unnecessary force by police as a hate crime. Please have city officials launch an investigation for possible prosecution of those responsible for violating the applicable city ordinance, and any federal or state statute, as it relates to the four Black women and the Black girl named in this correspondence.
We also want an investigation of the Cuyahoga County jail where Kathy Wray Coleman and Destini Bronaugh were housed without any jurisdictional authority of the people that placed them there as to illegal placements and the inhumane treatment of female inmates, including the rape on their persons. Please also initiate an investigation as to that deplorable Cleveland City Jail were women sleep on urine soaked floor cots without bedding, in cells with trash, and are given spoiled milk and cereal for breakfast and bologna and water for lunch. Why are these inmates, who are generally holdovers waiting for a determination on whether they will be charged with a crime, denied simple toiletries like toothpaste, tooth brushes and deodorant? Why not seek a grant to secure these items, or are they simply being withheld because the women are perceived as animals with no basic human rights?
Finally, we want police retrained to deal with the Black community and women. Slamming Black women and Black girls around like they are sacks of potatoes via illegal arrest activities is illegal. We understand that the U.S. Department of Justice allegedly set standards as to training programs and legal compliance mandates to redress problems relative to Cleveland police at all levels of the departmental continuum. Please investigate whether city officials have complied with any such mandates. While we realize that there are some good police, we also know that the issues at hand stem from systemic problems at the police department's infrastructure, and they must be effectively dealt with to improve police-community relations and to ensure compliance with city ordinances and state and federal law.
Given the ongoing problems relative to alleged police brutality and neglect as well as the obvious malicious prosecutions of Blacks and others by city officials, we must respectfully request that you diversify your appointed law enforcement leadership team where you have no Blacks or women as law director, safety director, chief of police, chief prosecutor or EMS commissioner in a city that is majority Black and predominantly female. When diversity is not a priority as to the assignments of city administrators it sends the message that it is not a priority elsewhere, including with respect to the fair treatment of Blacks and women by police and other city officials. And while we know that people can do good and do bad regardless of race or gender, we need to know that the Black mayor of the City of Cleveland believes that Blacks and women are qualified to lead in all areas of city government.
We seek a meeting with you as to the aforementioned as well as a written response to this letter. Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter and might we work in a cohesive fashion to enhance city outcomes. We trust that you believe that Black women and Black girls are people too, and that they do not shed their constitutional and statutory rights simply by virtue of their race, Black, and gender, female. If you do believe such, we would hope that you require it also of your law director, chief of police, safety director, chief prosecutor and EMS commissioner.
Most sincerely,
The Carl Stokes Brigade
By: Bert Jennings, Corresponding Secretary
xc: Cleveland City Council, Local Media, Community, Designated Others
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson
Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann KeoughFrom the Metro Desk of the Determiner Weekly.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
Honorable Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson
Cleveland City Hall
601 Lakeside Ave.
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
From: The Carl Stokes Brigade, a grassroots organization that fights for the little people on issues of public concern such as race and sex discrimination, police brutality, education, housing, and racial disparities in the courts and other justice system venues
Re: Issues of public concern regarding the malicious prosecution by the City of Cleveland and/or alleged police brutality against protesting Collinwood High School student Destini Bronaugh and her 17-year-old sister; the harassment and malicious prosecution of local Black Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman; the harassment and alleged police brutality against college student Rebecca Whitby; and, the harassment of Rebecca Whitby 's mother, who also goes by the name of Rebecca Whitby
Dear Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson:
Members of the Carl Stokes Brigade voted at its meeting this month to send a letter to you relative to the disenfranchisement of Black women and a girl as noted above, namely Destini Bronaugh and her 17-year old sister, Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman, Rebecca Whitby, and Rebecca's mother, who also goes by the name of
mayor of the predominantly Black major metropolitan City of Cleveland we seek your support as to this unprecedented harassment of Black women in a municipality that is 57 percent Black and largely female.
It appears that the aforementioned are victims of police brutality by Cleveland police and/or malicious prosecution by the City of Cleveland at the hands of Law Director Robert Triozzi, whom we believe should not be determining criminal charges on behalf of the city in lieu of Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez. On the latter issue we would herein request that you direct Mr. Triozzi to cease and desist, particularly where evidence points without a doubt to the malicious prosecution of Destini Bronaugh, a 19-year-old Cleveland schools student, and Kathy Wray Coleman, a 16-year local journalist, former public school teacher and respected community activist. Mr. Triozzi is a law director, not a prosecutor, and we ask that you stop him from bringing criminal charges, many of which are brought without the mandated probable cause finding, against Blacks, women and others on behalf of the City of Cleveland.
We believe that Triozzi's actions against Destini and Ms. Coleman are for political reasons, and due to perceived racism, sexism and malfeasance. Specially, in the case of Destini Bronaugh, a Black Collinwood High School student, Mr. Triozzi's charges on behalf of the City of Cleveland, which came in retaliation for Destini having spoken out on Cleveland schools issues of public concern, are unprecedented, unconstitutional and uncalled for in the twenty-first century. Has the pendulum swung back to the 1960's as to what is happening to Blacks and women in the predominantly Black City of Cleveland?
Destini Bronaugh, who on May 14, 2010 was brutally arrested by White male Cleveland Fifth District Police officers along with her 17-year-old sister, and subsequently indicted on the since dropped state criminal charges, is now the victim of Triozzi's wrath of misdemeanor charges and, according to community activists organizations, including the Brigade, the target of retaliation by Cleveland city officials and others. That retaliation, we believe, is in response to a student-organized walkout at Collinwood High School on May 14, 2010 to protest the layoffs of 545 district teachers and the closings of 14 of Cleveland's public schools. Twelve of those community schools are on the predominantly Black East side of Cleveland and educational stakeholders, including Cleveland schools students, should be able to voice concerns on these issues without the threat of possible prison time on malicious criminal charges leveled by the City of Cleveland.
Destini Bronaugh was arrested after she questioned the arrest of her sister on the never used day-time curfew violation charge during the protest, even though both she and her sister were put out of school after going back in at a teacher's request during the protest. And the curfew violation charge has since been dismissed by a Juvenile Court judge. Destini was initially charged by the State of Ohio with felony assault and resisting arrest, both dropped a week later by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason due to a lack of probable cause after a bogus indictment on the charges by a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury. Triozzi then brought the pending malicious and unfounded charges of misdemeanor resisting arrest and obstruction of official business against Destini in retaliation.
The Rev. Dr. Marvin McMickle, a former Cleveland NAACP President and prior Cuyahoga County Jury Foreman, branded the Grand Jury indictment process an “apartheid venue” where Blacks are maliciously indicted in a disproportionate fashion and often in the absence of the required probable cause finding. Please seek a comprehensive investigation of that process for the betterment of the Cleveland community.
We are also requesting that all charges be dismissed against Collinwood High School teen Destini Bronaugh and would seek an internal investigation of police around the treatment by police of both Destini and here sister, both of whom are represented by prominent Cleveland attorney Terry Gilbert. Though the younger Bronaugh girl faces charges in Juvenile Court, any and all allegations of criminal wrongdoing against these girls interferes with their futures. Nothing about the incident in question suggests in the least that either of them has violated any city ordinance or state statute. Have you watched the video of the arrest of the girls that has garnered over 13,000 hits on YouTube under the title “Cleveland Police Brutalize Student Protesters?” If not, please do so before responding to this letter.
Why was Destini jailed in the county with felons after she was arrested rather than taken a block away from the school to the Fifth District Police Station? Please investigate this issue and discipline any all city employees, including police, that are responsible for throwing this 19-year-old in the county jail solely for intimidation purposes.
We cannot allow city officials and others an opportunity to destroy Black children for sinister reasons and because they exercise their right to free speech as embodied under the free speech clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Please join us in this noble fight for fair play and this effort to retain constitutional guarantees for our children in the midst of a clear fallout between Cleveland schools officials, the city, and the Cleveland Teachers Union that has put the freedom of two of the city's innocent Black girls at risk via Triozzi's apparent negligence, his retaliatory motives, and his outright insensitivity to Blacks and women.
Turning to the issues as to Ms. Coleman, city officials should be ashamed of themselves. Ms. Coleman was maliciously prosecuted by the City of Cleveland after Triozzi signed the charges because county prosecutor Mason would not agree to the illegal activity of malicious prosecution by the State of Ohio.
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Keough was arbitrarily selected to hear the Coleman malicious prosecution case in violation of the local rules of the Cleveland Municipal Court, which require that the initial assignment of a judge is by lot. She has also been assigned arbitrarily to hear the Destiny Bronaugh case, raising questions as to the propriety of the assignment processes for judges in the Cleveland Municipal Court where Triozzi was once a sitting judge, as well as the relationship between Triozzi and Judge Keough to this process.
The charges that were before Keough, which in addition to resisting arrest include making false alarms, aggravated disorderly conduct and obstruction of official business, were filed on behalf of the City of Cleveland on Sept. 30 2008, two months after Coleman was released from the county jail without charges via an arrest in the Justice Center in Cleveland on Aug 7 of 2008. After holding her for four days in the county jail, where she says she was harassed over 38 articles on race issues written by the journalist and published in the Call and Post Newspaper and held naked by a disgruntled male supervisor, Triozzi intervened months later with a malicious prosecution by the City of Cleveland as to the arrest itself, activity initiated via a peculiar relationship where Judge Keough is illegally assigned such cases, followed by an endorsement by city officials for her current run for an open seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals.
Coleman's attorney Wayne Kerek, has said in pleadings before Judge Keough that the judge allegedly promoted the illegal resisting arrest verdict with illegal jury instructions, even though sole arresting White male peace officer Gerald Pace did not even accuse Coleman of resisting his arrest or testify at trial. Thus, Coleman was denied her constitutional right under the Sixth Amendment to confront her non-existent accuser where, by law, the charge should have been dismissed. Since we are sure that you believe in this fundamental constitutional right of confrontation, which was required even before Blacks could vote in this country, we would request that Triozzi immediately move for dismissal as to the illegal resisting arrest verdict.
A host of other illegalities were alleged to have occurred in the two day trial held before Judge Keough last May where Ms. Coleman was exonerated by a jury of all but the resisting arrest charge. She has yet to be sentenced on the illegal resisting arrest verdict. She awaits a hearing seeking dismissal of it as the law provides, particularly since she was denied her fundamental right to confront the arresting officer who sided with Coleman and says no resisting arrest ever occurred. Triozzi is well aware of those illegalities and Judge Keough has retaliated in an unheard of fashion that brings the integrity of the entire Cleveland Municipal Court into question. Might you question the judicial impropriety that appears obvious to the ordinary person and possibly real to you as a former assistant city prosecutor and current chief political leader of the City of Cleveland?
We also take issue as to what appears to be an ongoing attempt by Judge Keough to destroy Ms. Coleman, and since you have endorsed Judge Keough this year for an open seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals, please ask this runaway judge to cease her harassment of Coleman, which includes illegal jailing and the blatant disregard of the law. How can this judge sentence a Black person for allegedly resisting the arrest of a White male arresting officer who did not accuse her of it where he and Ms. Coleman are the only witnesses to the arrest, and she legitimately took the stand at trial and denied the charge. How far back are we going in rekindling the unconstitutional activity that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's so fiercely sought to negate? Do the statutory and constitutional rights of Black women and Black girls mean anything to city officials and the police at issue?
Of other concern is that Judge Keough refuses to allow Kerek to withdraw as paid counsel of record for Ms. Coleman even though he is slated to testify against his client in an unrelated case and the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility mandates his withdrawal. This too is unconstitutional where instead of disqualifying Kerek, Judge Keough is trying to force him on Ms. Coleman at her scheduled illegal sentencing on the illegal resisting arrest verdict that she refuses to throw out in compliance with the law. This and other activity of the judge bring her fitness for the bench into question and it clearly reveals a vendetta against Ms. Coleman.
Will you stand with us in questioning why Black women and Black girls are not afforded the constitutional guarantees slated as to their non-Black and non -female counterparts,? though we question whether White men and White boys have ever been subjected to the racist and sexist activity that the women victims addressed via this correspondence to you have been forced to endure?
As to the case of college student Rebecca Whitby, 24, and her mother, also named Rebecca Whitby, we have concerns relative to this egregious matter too. The Whitby cases arose when the younger Whitby's father, Timothy Walker, allegedly summoned police to the family home, then in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood, to mediate his request that his daughter not drive her car while allegedly slightly inebriated. When police found things allegedly okay they allegedly took the position that somebody had to be arrested just because they were called, ultimately arresting the younger Whitby, who was allegedly jailed and released without charges after an alleged police beating.
After the Whitby's filed internal charges against police the charges were brought against the younger Whitby and her mother, 47, was subsequently charged. Grassroots activists say she merely put her body over her daughter's to minimize the alleged beating. The younger Whitby is currently facing a host of bogus charges brought by the State of Ohio, including assault on two White male Cleveland Fifth District police officers. She is also charged with aggravated robbery for allegedly single-handedly stealing the guns of these two policemen. Both of the Whitby's have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Why is it that the Fifth District police are continually accused of brutalizing Black women and girls, including the Collinwood High School students mentioned early on in this correspondence? Does this concern you?
What is extremely puzzling about the Whitby cases is that an elderly White neighbor says she witnessed the policemen in question beat the younger Whitby without just cause and call her a "nigger" the night in question, and neither Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGraft nor Safety Director Martin Flask, both of whom are White and male like Triozzi, and of whom are all appointed by you, has launched an investigation around these serious allegations. Cleveland is not “Mississippi Burning” and we do not expect allegations of “nigger calling” and alleged police beating of Black women and Black girls to be swept under the rug. Please initiate an immediate investigation around this matter.
Cleveland has a city ordinance as to violations of constitutional guarantees, including the denial of equal protection under the law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The ordinance also precludes acts of racism, sexism, and unnecessary force by police as a hate crime. Please have city officials launch an investigation for possible prosecution of those responsible for violating the applicable city ordinance, and any federal or state statute, as it relates to the four Black women and the Black girl named in this correspondence.
We also want an investigation of the Cuyahoga County jail where Kathy Wray Coleman and Destini Bronaugh were housed without any jurisdictional authority of the people that placed them there as to illegal placements and the inhumane treatment of female inmates, including the rape on their persons. Please also initiate an investigation as to that deplorable Cleveland City Jail were women sleep on urine soaked floor cots without bedding, in cells with trash, and are given spoiled milk and cereal for breakfast and bologna and water for lunch. Why are these inmates, who are generally holdovers waiting for a determination on whether they will be charged with a crime, denied simple toiletries like toothpaste, tooth brushes and deodorant? Why not seek a grant to secure these items, or are they simply being withheld because the women are perceived as animals with no basic human rights?
Finally, we want police retrained to deal with the Black community and women. Slamming Black women and Black girls around like they are sacks of potatoes via illegal arrest activities is illegal. We understand that the U.S. Department of Justice allegedly set standards as to training programs and legal compliance mandates to redress problems relative to Cleveland police at all levels of the departmental continuum. Please investigate whether city officials have complied with any such mandates. While we realize that there are some good police, we also know that the issues at hand stem from systemic problems at the police department's infrastructure, and they must be effectively dealt with to improve police-community relations and to ensure compliance with city ordinances and state and federal law.
Given the ongoing problems relative to alleged police brutality and neglect as well as the obvious malicious prosecutions of Blacks and others by city officials, we must respectfully request that you diversify your appointed law enforcement leadership team where you have no Blacks or women as law director, safety director, chief of police, chief prosecutor or EMS commissioner in a city that is majority Black and predominantly female. When diversity is not a priority as to the assignments of city administrators it sends the message that it is not a priority elsewhere, including with respect to the fair treatment of Blacks and women by police and other city officials. And while we know that people can do good and do bad regardless of race or gender, we need to know that the Black mayor of the City of Cleveland believes that Blacks and women are qualified to lead in all areas of city government.
We seek a meeting with you as to the aforementioned as well as a written response to this letter. Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter and might we work in a cohesive fashion to enhance city outcomes. We trust that you believe that Black women and Black girls are people too, and that they do not shed their constitutional and statutory rights simply by virtue of their race, Black, and gender, female. If you do believe such, we would hope that you require it also of your law director, chief of police, safety director, chief prosecutor and EMS commissioner.
Most sincerely,
The Carl Stokes Brigade
By: Bert Jennings, Corresponding Secretary
xc: Cleveland City Council, Local Media, Community, Designated Others
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