U.S. Sen Sherrod Brown, Rep Joyce Beatty speak to Clevelandurbannews.com, reporters after pro-George Floyd riots in Cleveland and Columbus, Brown introducing a racial profiling bill that would link federal funds for law enforcement based upon effective racial profiling policies by state and local governments....A Cleveland Democrat, Senator Brown said that police have been "gunning down Blacks long before the [corona] virus"....And Representative Beatty, a Columbus Democrat and one of 2 Blacks in Congress from Ohio, said that racism and police brutality are at a crisis level....By Editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, and U.S. Representative Joyce Beatty, a Columbus Democrat

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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.

George Floyd

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief, a Black journalist who trained fo 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) of Cleveland hosted a news conference call with reporters, U.S. Representative Joyce Beatty (D-OH) of Columbus, and Civil Rights Leader Bishop Bobby Hilton from Cincinnati to announce his recently introduced racial profiling bill, the teleconference also scheduled in support of Ohioans fighting for racial justice in the wake of the death by Minneapolis police of George Floyd, and the killing by Louisville police of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor.

Also at issue was police misconduct involving too many other Black Americans to mention, Brown also highlighting to reporters the Cleveland police shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014.

Both Brown and Beatty blasted President Donald Trump as unfit in their view to handle the fallout from Floyd's killing, and the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 376,000 people worldwide, 108,000 in the U.S., which is the hardest hit country.

Ohio has reported some 2,259 coronavirus deaths to date. 

A Republican elected in 2016 over then Democrat Hillary Clinton, the president, who won the pivotal state of Ohio in 2016, will face Democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden in November for the 2020 presidential election

A former Ohio secretary of state and a Cleveland Democrat, Sen. Brown has cosponsored legislation, the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act, to better enforce equal protection laws and work to end racial profiling in the criminal justice system.  

In large part, the bill is a research, training  and data collection bill designed to minimize racial profiling by police and other law enforcement venues.

The bill, which must pass Congress and escape any possible veto from the president to become law, does have some teeth though, and would require that federal law enforcement funds, and other funds that go to states and local governments, are contingent upon the adoption of effective racial profiling policies. 

Sounding like an activist, Brown said during the conference call that included more than 30 reporters from news outlets across the country, that reporters could ask him anything as he believes in a free press, and he said that racism against the Black community is at a crisis point and that  police nationally have been "gunning down Blacks... long before the [corona] virus." 

The federal lawmaker said that President Trump's approach to the rioting and racial unrest in response to Floyd's death, in which a White cop choked the 46-year-old into unconsciousness while he was on the ground and in custody, is "rubbing salt in the open wounds of Black Americans."

The president  is under fire for threatening military aggressiveness on thousands of  protesters in cities across the country and saying that if they loot police will shoot.

Ask  by editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com if he believes introducing a bill in Congress that links stimulus monies specifically to a Black community disproportionately impacted by coronavirus deaths and a racist legal system that is disenfranchising them would be a good idea, and whether any such bill would pass constitutional muster, Brown said he was considering all types of suggestions, including  "your idea."

The United States senator said that even a current 3 trillion dollar stimulus package, referencing CARES 2, the second Cares Act and the 5th stimulus package offered by Congress since the pandemic broke out that, among other relief, wound increase the minimum SNAP benefit to $30, has stalled in the Senate.

It passed the Democratically-controlled House and  is being sabotaged by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Brown said, McConnell a Louisville, Kentucky Republican and Louisville a city like Cleveland and Columbus where rioting has erupted in the past week over police brutality and excessive force issues.

Rep Beatty, one of two Blacks in Congress from Ohio along with 11th congressional district congresswoman Marcia Fudge, a Cleveland area Democrat, was just as vocal as Brown during Wednesday's teleconference with reporters and said that this time around the movement against racism, police brutality and Black disenfranchisement will be consistent and that pushing around the Black community and others will not be as easy as it has been in the past.

"I believe this nation has come to a point that they are not going to let this go on," said Beatty of the racism and police brutality plaguing America.

Bishop Bobby Hilton

Bishop Hilton, a long time Cincinnati Civil Rights leader and senior pastor of Word of Deliverance Ministries for the World, said he was pleased to join Brown and Beatty on the conference call and that he represented the local Cincinnati chapter of the Rev Al Sharpton's  New York-based National Action Network.

Hilton said that so many people simply cannot internalize the phenomenon of institutional racism and that "even now there are those who act like they cannot see the issues."

Cincinnati has had peaceful protests thus far around the George Floyd killing by police but is remembered for riots in 2001 in response to the fatal police shooting of teenager Timothy Thomas, who was also Black.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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.