New female Cuyahoga County Jail director to start June 3 as activists will picket the jail May 23 in downtown Cleveland after some 8 jail deaths in under a year...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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| New Cuyahoga County Jail Director Ronda Gibson |
By Kathy Wray Coleman, investigative reporter, editor-in-chief
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com-CLEVELAND, Ohio-Lorain County Jail administrator Ronda Gibson will start her new job as director of the embattled Cuyahoga County Jail on June 3 as community activists prepare to picket the jail at the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland beginning at 4 pm on May 23, 2019, a protest that follows some eight jail deaths last year. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE EVENT FACEBOOK PAGE
A ninth inmate died this month, many of the deaths the result of negligence by jail authorities, sources say, and some from inmate drug overdoses in the making that were ignored, often on intake of inmates to the jail.
Authorities say recorded drug over dose deaths in Cuyahoga County dropped from 700 in 2017 to 560 last year.
It is no secret that the heroin and opiate crisis in Ohio still remains at epidemic levels from 2017 where Ohio had the second largest rate of deaths from drug overdoses nationwide.
Activists said their picket, led by Puncture the Silence Cleveland, Cleveland, the Ohio Student Association, Black on Black Crime Inc, and Imperial Women Coalition, is not related to Gibson's new assignment as overseer of one of the nation's most notorious jail's.
One of two finalists, Gibson's upcoming new day on the job follows indictments this year 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 in April.
With 15 years experience in corrections, she will be draw a salary of $114,000 annually as a jail director in the minority in terms of an administrative leadership role in a jail run by men that has a climate that is anti-Black, anti-Democratic, anti-female, and plagued with public corruption and gross malfeasance, research reveals.
The FBI and other authorities have been swarming the jail since last year.
The Cuyahoga County Jail is the state's second most populated jail behind Franklin County, the largest of 88 counties statewide, followed by Cuyahoga County, which includes the majority Black Cleveland and is roughly 29 percent Black.
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 county 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
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.
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 NE
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