Editorial: Plain Dealer Columnist Regina Brett Picks On Black Male Leaders In Apology To White Officer She Blasted In Warehouse District Case
Pulitizer Nominated Plain Dealer Columnist Regina Brett
Cleveland Ward 2 Councilman Zack Reed
Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson
Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough
Attorney and Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes
From the Metro Desk of the DeterminerWeekly.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com (An Editorial by Editor and Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman)
Pulitzer nominated Plain Dealer Columnist Regina Brett, in her column dated Dec. 2 , apologizes to a White male Cleveland Police officer whom she chastised in a previous column following alleged claims by the Cleveland NAACP and a few Cleveland City councilmen that he is allegedly racist following an altercation with a group of educated Black men that were patronizing a bar in Cleveland's Warehouse District (Note: go to www.cleveland.com to read the column, and all deny that the officer, himself, was called racist).
Before I attempt a scholarly approach to this assessment I might say, with expected opposition, that Black people cannot be racist in America. Racism, by some standards, is the inequitable distribution of resources by the majority power structure and in America Blacks do not have the collective power to be racist, if individuals can be racist. Hence, we can only be potential bigots, to those that embrace such a sophisticated definition of racism.
At particular issue is whether Morehouse College graduate Jason Ruiz, 27, an intern at a local Cleveland area bank that did what young people do on the weekends by going for a night on the town in the Warehouse District , should apologize to the police officer after taking a plea deal of probation before judgment on Monday relative to misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest and criminal trespass. The controversial case, by controversial design, was heard by Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough.
The handsome and debonair Ruiz, who has no criminal record, was arrested Aug 21 outside a a West Sixth Street night club in the Warehouse District following an altercation with police, including the officer in question. He and a group of other Blacks said that they were allegedly targeted to leave because the bar was allegedly closing while their White counterparts were not. If Ruiz completes his six months of probation without incident the charges will be dropped.
Brett, who has not yet won a Pulitzer, said she did not do adequate research before blasting the White officer and simply believing Black people, namely Ruiz, his lawyer George Forbes, also president of the Cleveland NAACP, NAACP Executive Director Stanley Miller, and a group of other Black leaders, including Cleveland City Councilmen Zack Reed and Jeff Johnson.
In her apology to the officer Brett seems to do what she probably thinks is effective back research and back stepping with two things in mind____ to clear her name and to protect the PD from potential liability. To do so she has no choice but to dog the 79-year-old Forbes, who may or may nor deserve it, Miller, Ruiz, Reed, and Johnson, all Black men. But what she has not done is demand public release of the camera video of the alleged incident that Cleveland Safety Director Martin Flask is hiding from the Black community and others, if one really exists.
What Brett will not do is take on Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, who presided in the case and who was illegally assigned to it via personal selection rather than by random draw. She is not going to ask Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi to explain how he can usurp the role of Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez to bring the charges for the city against Ruiz and other Blacks when he is a former Cleveland judge and colleague to Keough.
And Brett will not tell you that in a clear conflict of interest Triozzi is literally Keough's lawyer as late as last year in a petition for a writ of prohibition case before the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals. In that case a Black woman seeks support for a request that Judge Keough be forced to comply with the law when harassing Black and female defendants. Fortunately for Keough, her best friend since second grade (Judge Mary Eileen Kilbane), and former Cleveland Municipal Court Presiding and Administrative Judge Larry Jones, who is Black, ran interference for her, and in a biased manner.
Brett should not, after claiming shady investigative work, now pick only on our Black men and Black male leaders simply because she allegedly did not research the issue before blasting the police officer in a prior column, if you believe that she didn't do such research, and if you happen to believe that Ruiz is guilty as sin and the White officer at hand is as clean as a whistle.
As long as that video of the incident stays hidden Brett cannot effectively judge for us what actually happen. And even if it exists and were released for public consumption,impropriety can be expected since data show falsification of criminal trial transcripts manipulation of camera video data, defamation via lies of convictions, and falsification of documents to hurt appeals of illegal convictions in the Cleveland Municipal Court. And Brett has been told of some of this.
Regina Brett should stop picking only on Black men and Black male leaders on this issue while refusing to demand that the public have access to the video of the incident, though a public records request must get it. This is particularly true since Triozzi, Flask and Keough, all White, get a free pass from her criticism, in spite of their obvious involvement.
Cleveland Ward 2 Councilman Zack Reed
Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson
Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough
Attorney and Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes
From the Metro Desk of the DeterminerWeekly.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com (An Editorial by Editor and Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman)
Pulitzer nominated Plain Dealer Columnist Regina Brett, in her column dated Dec. 2 , apologizes to a White male Cleveland Police officer whom she chastised in a previous column following alleged claims by the Cleveland NAACP and a few Cleveland City councilmen that he is allegedly racist following an altercation with a group of educated Black men that were patronizing a bar in Cleveland's Warehouse District (Note: go to www.cleveland.com to read the column, and all deny that the officer, himself, was called racist).
Before I attempt a scholarly approach to this assessment I might say, with expected opposition, that Black people cannot be racist in America. Racism, by some standards, is the inequitable distribution of resources by the majority power structure and in America Blacks do not have the collective power to be racist, if individuals can be racist. Hence, we can only be potential bigots, to those that embrace such a sophisticated definition of racism.
At particular issue is whether Morehouse College graduate Jason Ruiz, 27, an intern at a local Cleveland area bank that did what young people do on the weekends by going for a night on the town in the Warehouse District , should apologize to the police officer after taking a plea deal of probation before judgment on Monday relative to misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest and criminal trespass. The controversial case, by controversial design, was heard by Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough.
The handsome and debonair Ruiz, who has no criminal record, was arrested Aug 21 outside a a West Sixth Street night club in the Warehouse District following an altercation with police, including the officer in question. He and a group of other Blacks said that they were allegedly targeted to leave because the bar was allegedly closing while their White counterparts were not. If Ruiz completes his six months of probation without incident the charges will be dropped.
Brett, who has not yet won a Pulitzer, said she did not do adequate research before blasting the White officer and simply believing Black people, namely Ruiz, his lawyer George Forbes, also president of the Cleveland NAACP, NAACP Executive Director Stanley Miller, and a group of other Black leaders, including Cleveland City Councilmen Zack Reed and Jeff Johnson.
In her apology to the officer Brett seems to do what she probably thinks is effective back research and back stepping with two things in mind____ to clear her name and to protect the PD from potential liability. To do so she has no choice but to dog the 79-year-old Forbes, who may or may nor deserve it, Miller, Ruiz, Reed, and Johnson, all Black men. But what she has not done is demand public release of the camera video of the alleged incident that Cleveland Safety Director Martin Flask is hiding from the Black community and others, if one really exists.
What Brett will not do is take on Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, who presided in the case and who was illegally assigned to it via personal selection rather than by random draw. She is not going to ask Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi to explain how he can usurp the role of Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez to bring the charges for the city against Ruiz and other Blacks when he is a former Cleveland judge and colleague to Keough.
And Brett will not tell you that in a clear conflict of interest Triozzi is literally Keough's lawyer as late as last year in a petition for a writ of prohibition case before the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals. In that case a Black woman seeks support for a request that Judge Keough be forced to comply with the law when harassing Black and female defendants. Fortunately for Keough, her best friend since second grade (Judge Mary Eileen Kilbane), and former Cleveland Municipal Court Presiding and Administrative Judge Larry Jones, who is Black, ran interference for her, and in a biased manner.
Brett should not, after claiming shady investigative work, now pick only on our Black men and Black male leaders simply because she allegedly did not research the issue before blasting the police officer in a prior column, if you believe that she didn't do such research, and if you happen to believe that Ruiz is guilty as sin and the White officer at hand is as clean as a whistle.
As long as that video of the incident stays hidden Brett cannot effectively judge for us what actually happen. And even if it exists and were released for public consumption,impropriety can be expected since data show falsification of criminal trial transcripts manipulation of camera video data, defamation via lies of convictions, and falsification of documents to hurt appeals of illegal convictions in the Cleveland Municipal Court. And Brett has been told of some of this.
Regina Brett should stop picking only on Black men and Black male leaders on this issue while refusing to demand that the public have access to the video of the incident, though a public records request must get it. This is particularly true since Triozzi, Flask and Keough, all White, get a free pass from her criticism, in spite of their obvious involvement.
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