Public town hall forum with community activists, the Greater Cleveland Civil and Human Rights Coalition, local victims of Cleveland police harassment is Saturday, February 21 from 11 am to 1 pm at the MLK public library in Cleveland, discussion will include the DOJ report on police killings, a 'People's Grand Jury,' and police harassment of the transgender community and others, speakers include activists, Cleveland NAACP attorney, Black Shield Police Association president, victims of police abuse

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com, and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and newspaper blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473.  (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) 

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Community activists, area attorneys, and victims of police harassment, including members of the transgender community, will participate on Saturday in an open-to-the public town hall meeting on police brutality and excessive force. Other topics include racism and other prejudices, and the upcoming consent decree between the City of Cleveland and the U.S. Department of Justice relative to its findings of impropriety and systemic problems in the largely White Cleveland Police Department. 

The community meeting is sponsored by the Greater Cleveland Civil and Human Rights Coalition, in cooperation with other activists and community grassroots groups, and is February 21 from 11 am to 1 pm at the Cleveland Public Library Martin Luther King Jr. Branch, 1962 Stokes Boulevard. 

The contacts for the event are key organizer Don Bryant of the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network at (216) 772-6788, Julia Shearson from CAIR-Ohioat (216) 830-2247, and Kathy Wray Coleman, an investigative journalist who leads the Imperial Women Coalition at (216) 659-0473.

A large crowd is expected and speakers include family members of police brutality and police harassment victims, and Black Shield Police Association President Lynn Hampton, who said he is coming solely to push for more Black cops and other police officers of color on the Cleveland police force. 

"Everyone is invited and can speak," said Julia Shearson, executive director of the Cleveland Chapter of CAIR-Ohio.

Light refreshments will be served and the media are invited.

The event comes on the heels of findings by the U.S. Department of Justice of systemic problems by Cleveland police, including a pattern of excessive force killings, and the police shooting death last year of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was gunned down at a public park for sporting a toy pellet gun. 

Other police killings that have community activists and others upset include Tanisha Anderson, Daniel Ficker, rapper Kenneth Smith, and Malissa Williams and Tim Russell, who were both gunned down in 2012 by 13 non-Black cops slinging 137 bullets.

Organizers said that the group is "responding to racism, police violence and systemic injustice."

The Greater Cleveland Civil and Human Rights Coalition was formed in Cleveland through the help of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (www.bordc.org) in 2011, and under the leadership of George Friday, a national community organizer. 

The purpose of the coalition is to help unite diverse communities to build power for social justice and human equality, organizers said.

The coalition has been focused on racial profiling, the criminalizing of communities of color, and other systemic injustices. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)