Family members of Cleveland, CMHA police excessive force victims to speak at '137 shots' anniversary vigil and rally of the '137 shots' Cleveland police shooting deaths of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell, the event of which is November 29, 2021....Both Williams, 30, and Russell, 43, were Black, and both were gunned down by 13-non-Black Cleveland cops shooting 137 bullets, an execution-style 'Bonnie and Clyde' type shooting... (An upcoming racist Netflix documentary as to the '137 shots' promotes Whites and police and excludes Black Cleveland organizers, Black journalists and Black Lives Matter activists as interviewees. A White woman who has not spoken out against excessive force is the moderator of the prejudicial documentary)...By Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com the most read Black digital newspaper and blog 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.
NOTE: ( An upcoming racist documentary on Netflix as to the "137 shots"promotes Whites and police and excludes Black Cleveland organizers, Black journalists, and Black Lives Matter activists as interviewees. A White woman who has not spoken out against excessive force is the moderator of the prejudicial documentary).
CLEVELAND, Ohio- The community will host the anniversary rally and candlelight vigil relative to the "137 shots" Cleveland police shooting deaths of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell, an open-to-the public event that will be held on Mon, Nov. 29, 2021 from 5-pm-6:30-pm ET in the parking lot of Heritage Middle School at 14410 Terrace Road in neighboring East Cleveland. (For more information call 216-659-0473 or 216-804-7462. Participants are requested to wear masks).
Community activists and other community members generally protest annually at Heritage Middle School on Nov 29, the anniversary date of the "137 shots" police killings that occurred the night of Nov 29, 2012. This year marks the nine-year anniversary of the tragic killings by Cleveland police of Williams and Russell, an event that is commonly known as "137 shots" for the number of shots Cleveland police took in unceremoniously gunning down the unarmed Black couple that was not not wanted by the law.
Organizers said that speakers include residents of Cleveland and East Cleveland, community activists, Black elected officials, and family members of Black people erroneously gunned down by Cleveland and greater Cleveland cops and other area law enforcement types, like, for example, Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority police officers who recklessly shoot and kill young Black men. Also speaking will be Scott Hawkins, who is the father of Arthur Keith, whom a CMHA police officer gunned down, as well as Issue 24 activists such as Alicia Kirkman and Brenda Bickerstaff, whose loved one's were shot and killed by Cleveland police. Criminal justice reform activists, and women's rights and Black Lives Matter activists will speak too, as will Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell, East Cleveland Councilman Ernest Smith and East Cleveland School Board Member Dr Mary Rice, among others.
Black on Black Crime President Alfred Porter Jr, an annual co-organizer of the event, called it "timely and necessary behind the Rittenhouse not guilty verdict and the guilty verdicts of the three White defendants prosecuted in the Ahmaud Arbery murder case, as well as excessive force cases in our own community that still merit attention."
Other activists agreed with Porter as to the importance of keeping police reform issues before the public during a time of national outcry and growing distrust by Black America in the nation's troubled and intrinsically racist legal system.
"This is an annual anniversary event that is needed to remember the "137 shots" atrocity and to continue our push against excessive force killings by Cleveland police of defenseless Black people and for comprehensive police reforms across the board in Cleveland, neighboring East Cleveland, and elsewhere in Cuyahoga County," said rally co-organizer Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women Coalition.
Coleman has been a key "137 shots" anniversary organizer since 2013. She said that Monday's rally and vigil will also address public policy changes regarding the city's safety forces as Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson retires later this year and newcomer Justin Bibb takes the leadership helm over the largely Black major American city of some 372,00 people.
Coleman said that activists will also call for "changes under state law and the Rules of Criminal Procedure in Ohio as to a grand jury and indictment process that favors police and the wealthy, and disenfranchises Black people, and poor people, among others."
The outdoor event comes on the heels of passage of Issue 24, a Cleveland police reform initiative overwhelmingly approved by voters on Nov 2 and that changes the city's office of professional standards and establishes a citizen-dominated community review commission that has public policy making authority. Also at the rally and vigil, activists said they will discuss outgoing Mayor Frank Jackson's no chase police, which among other mandates, precludes Cleveland police car chases of people absent a suspected felony, a mandate Jackson put in place following several reckless police chases and after Williams and Russell were chased by police by car from downtown Cleveland to neighboring East Cleveland and gunned down execution -style.
Newly elected Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and newly selected city council president Blaine Griffin have both said publicly that they will support such a no chase policy and activists will hold them to their promises at the rally and vigil, organizers for Monday's anniversary gathering have said.
Community activists say they will never forget the night nine years ago when Cleveland police chased Williams and Russell from Cleveland to East Cleveland and gunned them down with 137 bullets in a car in a middle school parking lot.
On that deadly November 29th night a White Cleveland cop, according to public records, claims he mistook Russell's 1979 Chevy Malibu Classic backfiring near the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland and began pursuit of the homeless couple, also radioing the dispatch to call for backup, which came in droves, precautionary measures be damned.
Some 276 patrol officers were working the night of the high speed 22 min. chase that ended in the Heritage Middle School parking lot in neighboring and impoverished East Cleveland, a Cleveland suburb, Williams and Russell chased by some 64 patrol cars, and literally fleeing for their lives.
The city of Cleveland later settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $3 million that was split between the families of the two victims, Russell leaving behind a grown disabled son. Williams' parents have both since died.
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| The 1979 Malibu Classic driven by Timothy Russell that Cleveland police shot to hell with some 137 bullets, both Russell, and his passenger, Malissa Williams, dying at the scene of the shooting in the parking lot of Heritage Middle School in East Cleveland, neither of them armed and both of them Black |
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| Former Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo |
Five of the six officers fired for their roles in the shooting had their jobs reinstated in 2017 by an arbitrator and are Michael Farley, Erin O'Donnell, Christopher Ereg, Wilfredo Diaz, and Brian Sabolik.
The sixth officer, officer Brelo, was not reinstated after he was fired following his acquittal in May of 2015 on two counts of voluntary manslaughter in a bench trial before Democratic Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell, an acquittal that brought about community protests and some 71 arrests, mainly for minor infractions with police, though a few protesters faced felony charges.
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| Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell |
Sgt. Dailey's case never got duly prosecuted after Coleman won her case.
The celebrated 137 shots shooting fiasco is the impetus for a court-monitored consent decree for police reforms with the city of Cleveland and the U.S. Department of Justice, it along with so many other excessive force police killings in Cleveland of unarmed Blacks including 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Brandon Jones, rapper Kenneth Smith, and Tanisha Anderson.
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