Greater Cleveland community activist Kathy Wray Coleman harassed at gun point by a group of White University Heights policemen carrying guns and rifles, and allegedly called nigger..... Coleman says that the police harassment is for her activism, and writings, and for leading activists' meeting last week with NAACP, DOJ on police brutality and racial unrest as to the upcoming Brelo verdict....Coleman says she fears for her life....University Heights police and JPMorgan Chase Bank had broken into Coleman's University Height's home without a court order or eviction, and stole all her her property, including her furniture and a $20,000 collector's car, and have hidden the property from her.....Coleman said that Chase has burglarized her home on at least seven occasions with support of police and the office of the Cuyahoga County prosecutor....Several people are behind the harassment, says Coleman, including police, and Brelo Judge John O'Donnell whom Coleman says has stalked her for 12 years using a housing case he has no authority or jurisdiction to preside over....By Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news
Community activist Kathy Wray Coleman (above) speaks to the mainstream media at an anti-police brutality rally in greater Cleveland in response to Cleveland police shootings of unarmed Blacks. To the right of Ms. Coleman is the mother of Malissa Williams, whom police shot and killed in 2012 along with Timothy Russell while slinging 137 bullets. Neither victim was wanted by the law, and both were Black and unarmed when they were unceremoniously gunned down. Coleman helped to organize the rally on behalf of the Imperial Women Coalition. A verdict in the manslaughter trial of Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo is expected to come down soon by common pleas judge John O'Donnell, who is hearing the case in lieu of a jury per Brelo's request. Brelo fired 49 of 137 shots fired by 13 non-Black Cleveland cops at Williams and Russell. The other 12 police officers escaped criminal charges. (Photo by Laura Cowan).
From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio-A greater Cleveland community activist who led a meeting on May 13 with Cleveland NAACP officials and regional representatives from Chicago and Detroit for U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch around police brutality, racial unrest and the upcoming Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo manslaughter verdict was allegedly stalked two days later by five White University Heights police officers pointing guns and rifles. And one of the officers allegedly called the Black woman a "nigger." The victim said, in fact, that the cop said "get that nigger."(Editor's note: Brelo is on trial before Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell and faces two counts of voluntary manslaughter for his role in gunning down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell following a high speed car chase in 2012. He fired 49 of 137 bullets fired by 13 non-Black Cleveland cops, the other 12 of which were not charged).
Kathy Wray Coleman, a longtime community activist who leads the Imperial Women Coalition, and who trained for 17 years as a writer with the Call and Post Newspaper, Ohio's most prominent Black press, and now edits Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's largest digital Black newspaper, said they came to kill her, she believes, and are angry because she got away from them.
"I feared for my life that day and still do, and the harassment by racist White cops is right before the upcoming Brelo verdict for a reason" said Coleman "When an entourage of White policemen come on the property of a reporter and a Black Lives Matter activist unannounced, without a warrant, and slinging guns and rifles, it is serious, and dangerous."
Coleman said that Cleveland News Channel 5, led by news director Jeff Harris, who is White, and the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, are defaming her over the incident because she is Black and female, and a community activist and reporter that fights against injustices against the Black community.
Lynch's out-of-state U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) representatives told activists at the meeting that retaliation for meeting with them "is criminal."
Coleman said that the day of the bizarre police harassment incident, Friday, May 15, she and two men were repairing her home on Silsby Road in University Heights, a Cleveland suburb, relative to a previous fire of September 2013. She was sweeping and they were scrapping paint and taking down wallpaper.
Coleman said that prior to this most recent harassment incident, and specifically in November of last year, University Heights police and JPMorgan Chase Bank, per the urging of Brelo trial judge John O'Donnell, whom Coleman says has stalked her since 2003, broke into her University Heights home and garage without a court order or eviction, and stole all her belongings, including furniture and a $20,000 collector's car. They have the property hidden for harassment purposes, said Coleman, who added that Chase has burglarized her home on at least seven occasions with the support of University Heights police, the county prosecutor's office, and others.
The most recent harassment at her home, said Coleman, is a violation of privacy, criminal tresspass and a 4th Amendment illegal search and seizure, among other illegalities, and courts of law must determine abandoned homes to keep police from intruding in bad faith. In actuality, Coleman says she was lured to the home to fix it up by city officials, and then stalked at gunpoint as an intimidation tactic for exposing public corruption and police murders of unarmed Blacks, among other matters.
University Heights Mayor Susan Infeld, the city housing department, and police were aware that she had been repairing the home, Coleman said, and agreed that it should be done. Infeld, also the city safety director, even agreed, said Coleman, to protect her from harassment by police.
Her contractor, Robert Saffold, the stepfather of 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, was supposed to meet her at the home that afternoon. Instead, said Coleman,
the five White cops came storming at her pointing rifles and guns, one making racial epithets. She was outside at the time.
Coleman said that she got in her car and left, simply backing out of the driveway. The angry White cops at issue, said Coleman, acted as though they were going to shoot her dead on the spot.
Thereafter, the cops allegedly surrounded the house like a television movie and demanded that the two handy men come out with their hands up. They were then patted down, all while police put rifles and guns in their faces. One of the harassed men, both of them of whom are Black, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the officers asked if they were members of the Black nationalist group or the Black panthers, and said that if Coleman had any heart she would have stayed to protect them from police harassment.
Coleman called the men from her cell phone after she got to safety and police got on the phone and demanded papers that Saffold, as her contractor, had asked Coleman to bring to the home that day, though he did not show at the home for the meeting. Coleman told police that activists had been notified and to please let the men go and they were later released. Police said they brought five police officers with rifles and guns onto the property because it was abandoned, even though no court of law deemed the property abandoned and the $75,000 insurance check on the fire claim is in Coleman's name, and the name of JPMorgan Chase Bank. Moreover, they have been watching repairs go on at the house, including the neighbors, for the past couple of weeks.
Coleman said that she has been repeatedly harassed for articles and activism on racism, police brutality, public corruption, violence against women, politics, and documented foreclosure fraud by University Heights officials, judges, county officials and others. This includes leading rallies around Cleveland police fatal victims Tamir Rice and Tanisha Anderson, Ariel Castro victims Michelle Knight, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, the 11 victims of Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell, and the 137 bullets Williams-Russell shooting. Also, said Coleman, she has led protests in Shaker Heights, also a Cleveland suburb, as to alleged housing discrimination against Blacks , and has been harassed for that too, among other harassment for other community ventures.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
