Cleveland's Black activists support Judge Michael Nelson's call for a federal takeover of the Cuyahoga County Jail with activists protesting May 23 after 9 recent jail deaths, Nelson also calling for a consent decree for jail reforms....Community activists Brenda Bickerstaff, Frances Caldwell and Alfred Porter Jr. of Black on Black Crime Inc. comment....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog
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By Kathy Wray Coleman, investigative reporter, editor-in-chief
Nicholas Colbert, White and a 36-year-old former member of the National Guard in jail on a fourth-degree felony drug possession charge, hanged himself in the jail last week, sources said.
Specifics on his tragic death are unclear.
Specifics on his tragic death are unclear.
Nelson, 69, has asked U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman’s office to consider reaching a consent decree with Cuyahoga County over conditions in its jail via a hand-delivered letter sent earlier this month which cites the recent indictments of some five jail guards, one for allegedly contributing to an inmate's death, as well as former jail director Ken Mills and former warden Eric Ivey, who is Black and was demoted to associate warden shortly before he was indicted.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is acting as special prosecutor in place of County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley, whose contacts and influence have kept him out of the news, no matter what he does to Black people, data show, and sources say.
The Cleveland jail merged with the county last year and the jail, now one jail run solely by the county, is overcrowded with inmates stacked on top of each other, an ongoing investigation by Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com reveals.
The Cleveland jail merged with the county last year and the jail, now one jail run solely by the county, is overcrowded with inmates stacked on top of each other, an ongoing investigation by Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com reveals.
Judge Nelson also wants a court-monitored consent decree for jail reforms similar to the one between the U.S Department of Justice and the City of Cleveland for police reforms relative to excessive force and erroneous police killings, among other problems with the predominantly Black city's largely White and embattled police department.
"We support a federal takeover of the county jail and a consent decree for jail reforms as we continue to monitor the consent decree for Cleveland police reforms in place to improve policing in the community," said Cleveland activist Brenda Bickerstaff, also a private investigator.
Activists Frances Caldwell and Alfred Porter Jr, who leads Black on Black Crime Inc, joined Bickerstaff in support of Nelson' s call for jail reforms, among others.
"It is long overdue," said Porter, 50, of the need for county jail reforms.
Caldwell said that activists wholeheartedly support "Judge Nelson in calling for a federal takeover."
Caldwell, like Bickerstaff, is a Cleveland resident and Porter resides in neighboring Euclid, a largely Black Cleveland suburb.
Cleveland judges, like other Ohio municipal court judges, have limited jurisdiction to hear traffic and misdemeanor cases and civil lawsuits with damages sought at or under $15,000, though they have authority to bound over felony cases to be heard by the 34-member largely White general division common pleas court of Cuyahoga County.
Nelson's latest gripe, rooted in his Civil Rights thrust as a former local NAACP president and criminal defense attorney who has seen the injustice in Ohio's legal system upfront, follows his stance earlier this year that he would not send defendants cited for traffic citations and charged with lower level misdemeanor crimes to the county jail since several deaths, six at that time, had occurred there in a four-month period.
That stance by the Black judge on not jailing low level offenders has since changed, though it is clear that he has tired of the unjust discrepancies in the jail that have made it newsworthy on the national level and one of the most notorious jail's in the country, a reminder that while much has changed for Black people in America, much has not.
The jail is run by appointed sheriff Clifford Pinkney, the county's first Black sheriff who reports to County Executive Armond Budish.
Budish had his office raided by the FBI and other authorities over the unprecedented jail deaths, the first time in February of this year, and later in April, authorities saying that county officials and jail administrators ignored the deaths until recently gaining the spotlight
Ohio's second largest county behind Franklin County, which includes the capital city of Columbus, Cuyahoga County, a Democratic stronghold, is roughly 29 percent Black, and includes Cleveland.
Nelson, Budish,and Pinkney are Democrats as are a majority of the general division common pleas judges, and most of Cleveland's municipal court judges.
The Dems run the county, and the FBI and other authorities want more of them in jail as to a county public corruption probe that has seen two former common pleas judges, former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora, and former county auditor Frank Russo imprisoned, Russo and Dimora among more than 65 people, mainly Democratic businessmen, who either pleaded guilty or were convicted of public corruption crimes.
Cleveland community activists picketed in front of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center over judicial and prosecutorial malfeasance, police misconduct, and the overcrowding of the county jail.
Activists say that some city and common pleas judges, county officials and other officials are apathetic and must be held accountable.
A damning report released last November by U.S. Marshals on county jail conditions generated local and national news, a dreadful look at how inmates are mistreated such as withholding food for punishment, jailing juveniles with adults, rat and roach infested jail facilities, and a paramilitary jail corrections officers unit dubbed "The Men in Black" that intimidates and harasses inmates.
Inhumane and unconstitutional jail conditions are at the heart of the investigation by federal officials, prompting an impending lawsuit seeking a court injunction and a federal takeover of the jail.
Pregnant women are jailed on the floor, and health care is inadequate, investigators found.
This is coupled with malicious prosecutions, excessive bonds and heightened criminal sentences that disproportionately target the Black community, Black men in particular, the ongoing investigation by .Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com found.
Indictment fixing by prosecutors, judges and the office of the county clerk of courts is routine, public records reveal, and in the absence of a county grand jury.
Data further show that Blacks in particular, and others, are often jailed illegally, sometimes to appease the prosecution, other times for political favors, and generally to perpetrate a money enterprise that centers around resources the county gets for jailing people.
Those fiscal jail resources, which further greed and public corruption, investigators have said, include a per diem rate to the county for each inmate, a jail shopping store that delivers food and other goods weekly to inmates, and expensive phone calls simply for inmates to talk locally to family members, and sometimes even to their own lawyers.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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