Second gunned down Black victim Malissa Williams is laid to rest, Williams, 30, was shot and killed along with Timothy Ray Russell, 43, by a group of White Cleveland police officers, they were unarmed and shot at gangsta-style 137 times, no citizen complaint against Cleveland police has been found valid by Cleveland officials since 1974
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Publisher, Editor-n-Chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper(www.clevelandurbannews.com)
CLEVELAND,Ohio- The second of two unarmed Black victims gunned down last month by a group of White Cleveland police officers was laid to rest Saturday morning as friends, family and community gathered at Integrated Faith Assembly Church on Cleveland's predominantly Black east side for funeral services for Malissa Williams, 30.
Timothy Russell, 43, was driving the car that police say backfired in front of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center in Cleveland on Nov. 29, causing some 30 police cars to chase him and Williams, a passenger, for more than 25 minutes until surrounding the car at Wymore and Terrace Avenues in East Cleveland and shooting 137 bullets at it, gangsta-style.
East Cleveland is a small majority Black impoverished suburb of Cleveland, a largely Black major metropolitan city of some 400,000 residents. Both have their own dramas, and citizen driven complaints of police brutality and other alleged egregious interactions by police against the Black communities of both municipalities.
Russell was buried the week before and his family members attended services for Williams.
Both families have called the shootings racist and cold blooded murder. And they want more answers from city officials and police in Cleveland and East Cleveland.
No gun or shell casings other than police debris were found in or near the car, police said. Gun residue tests also clear the alleged victims, sources say.
Both Williams and Russell were Black and Cleveland police union leaders have called the shootings "a good shooting."
The Ohio ACLU and community activists are calling for local and county authorities, including Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty and county sheriff Bob Reid, and police and city officials in Cleveland and East Cleveland, to step away from the investigation and allow federal authorities to intervene to ensure due process protections for Williams and Russell.
Community activists protested at a community forum at Shaw High School last week on the deadly shootings .
Also calling for an FBI takeover of the investigation are the Cleveland NAACP, Ohio Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (D-11), and Olivet Institutional Baptist Church senior pastor the Rev. Dr. Jawanza Colvin, among others .
Jeff Follmer, president of the Cleveland Policemen's Association, balked at anybody but the locals he knows and McGinty, who took campaign contributions and was endorsed by the Cleveland police union for county prosecutor this year, to handle the case.
All of the 13 Cleveland police officers involved in the shootings are White, except one, and he is Hispanic. Those accused are either on paid administrative leave or have been returned to work, Cleveland officials have said.
Since 1974 no citizen complaint against Cleveland police has been found valid by Cleveland officials, data show.
Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473.
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