Activist and Cleveland NAACP attorney lead effort to recall Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson amid the Black mayor's opposition to DOJ findings of police abuse and a pattern of excessive force killings by police of unarmed Blacks, the Plain Dealer Newspaper reports

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com, Ohio's leaders in Black digital news.  Coleman is a 22-year investigative journalist and political and legal reporter who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

Cleveland Black Contractors Group President Norm Edwards leads a
protest years ago in front of Cleveland City Hall over a death of contracts and jobs to area Black contractors (Photo by Cleveland.Com, the online newspaper of the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper (www.cleveland.com)

Cleveland Criminal Defense Attorney Michael Nelson Sr., 
also an attorney for the Cleveland Chapter NAACP

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder

CLEVELAND, Ohio- According to a Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper article written by reporter Leila Atassi www.cleveland.com and published as a newspaper cover story on Saturday, February 14, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor, is facing a potential recall effort for denying that there are systemic problems in the largely White Cleveland Police Department amid findings to the contrary by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. (Editor's note: The first meeting to discuss the recall effort, which is being led by local Black contractor and community activist Norm Edwards, and Criminal Defense Attorney Michael Nelson Sr.,  is March 4 at 5 pm at the Kinsman Square Party Center at 3224 East 93rd Street in Cleveland. Nelson is also a lawyer for the Cleveland Chapter NAACP).

"It is the right of citizens within the charter to request a recall of any City of Cleveland elected official if they believe that is what they need to do," said Jackson, the Plain Dealer story says in part.

In order for Cleveland City Council to place a recall of the mayor on the ballot, petitioner's must submit some 12,000 signatures, or 20 percent of the votes cast in the last election, which was in 2013 for city council and mayor . The difficulty, however, is that the signatures must be submitted to Cleveland City Council Clerk Patricia Britt within 30 days of the submission of an affidavit, and Jackson still enjoys a degree of popularity across racial lines, something the Plain Dealer story fails to admit.

If enough signatures are collected and petitions for recall are certified to city council, a special election must be held not less than 40 days and not more than 60 days thereafter, though the city charter gives the mayor the opportunity to resign within five days after certification of petitions to city council.  

At the center of the controversy is a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) report announced last December by Holder, America's first Black attorney general, that found systemic problems in the Cleveland Police Department, including a pattern of excessive force, illegal pistil whippings of innocent adults and children, and mistreatment of the mentally ill.

Ohio Attorney General Michael DeWine also found systemic problems in the mayor's police department, though his report seeks to exonerate wrongdoing in high profile killings by White cops against unarmed Blacks.

The mayor has publicly rejected the overall findings of both Holder and DeWine, but has agreed to negotiate a consent decree with Holder amid community pressure and ongoing protests by community activists.

High profile police killings of unarmed  Blacks, from the shooting death last year by Cleveland police of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, to the killing last year of Tanisha Anderson while in police custody, and the November 2012 slaying by police slinging 137 bullets of unarmed Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell were the focus on CBS 60 minutes news segment that aired on January 25. During that segment Police Chief Calvin Williams, purportedly under the direction of the mayor, denied any systemic problems in the police department.

The recall effort is being led by Norm Edwards and local criminal defense attorney Michael Nelson Sr., a lawyer for the Cleveland Chapter NAACP, which is essentially shut down while the national headquarters investigates impropriety in what would have been an election of branch officers late last year.

Nelson ran against Jackson for mayor in 2005 but lost in the non-partisan primary, and got roughly three percent of the vote.

Edwards is a community activist who leads the American Center for Economic Equality and the Black Contractors Group that has protested at City Hall over a dearth of contracts and jobs to Black contractors. He is a staunch advocate of Republican Gov. John Kasich, whom he supported for reelection last year and has frequently promoted as a presidential contender in 2016 on social media.

Jackson, 68, is a former city council president and long time Democrat serving the second year of a third four-year term. He handily defeated millionaire businessman and political novice Ken Lanci in a mayoral election runoff in 2013.

Lanci is White but also a Democrat like Jackson, and, among others, he is eyeing another run for mayor in 2017, sources say.

"He [Mayor Jackson] is going to go up against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and tells them that they don't know what they are talking about," Edwards told the Plain Dealer in response to the mayor's overall opposition to the DOJ report. "What a slap in the face to Black people."

Edwards also told the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, that Jackson is the worst mayor in the city's history and said that Jackson is "giving police a pass to kill, maim and injure." (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)