Cleveland

All the Police Have to Do Is Utter Those Five Magic Words

  • September 7, 2017
  • By:

Janine Jackson: If there is a word for being stunned and stunned again, and yet unable to become numb, it would go some way towards describing how people — especially black people — felt as we heard the verdict in the case of the murder of Philando Castile. That a jury determined no crime was committed when Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez pumped seven bullets at Castile and into the back seat of the car where his girlfriend and her four-year-old child were sitting. That this was the system working. If these outcomes are to be more than a punch in…

From Black August to Black Lives Matter

  • August 23, 2015
  • By:

A year ago this month, the streets of Ferguson, Missouri exploded in the wake of the murder of eighteen-year-old Black teen, Michael Brown, at the hands of white police officer, Darren Wilson. The world watched closely as military Humvees and the national guard armed with tear gas and rubber bullets transformed an otherwise quiet town in the Midwest into a historic battlefront for the Black Lives Matter movement, the present-day Black liberation struggle born after the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman over the murder of the Black seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin. Since the Ferguson riots last August, Black Lives Matter has…

Statement from Vanita Gupta, Head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division–Cleveland Aquittal

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Saturday, May 23, 2015 Statement from Vanita Gupta, Head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dettlebach for the Northern District of Ohio and Special Agent in Charge Stephen D. Anthony for the FBI Statement from Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dettelbach for the Northern District of Ohio and Special Agent in Charge Stephen D. Anthony for the FBI: “The U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of…

Cleveland cop found not guilty in deaths of two African Americans

IANS/Cleveland Star Sunday 24th May, 2015 CLEVELAND, Ohio – A police officer in Cleveland, Ohio, was acquitted by a judge for the shooting deaths of two unarmed suspects, both black, after police chased the victims’ car on November 2012. After a four-week trial, Judge John P. O’Donnell on Saturday handed down the verdict in the case against white policeman Michael Brelo, 31, for the deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. http://www.clevelandstar.com/index.php/sid/233142667 see also: US Justice Department to Review Cleveland Police Shooting

Cleveland Streets Are Calm, but Anger Lingers Day After Officer’s Acquittal

MAY 24, 2015 CLEVELAND — The 10 a.m. service at Elizabeth Baptist Church should have been a joyous occasion. It was Pentecost Sunday. The weather was beautiful. Worshipers applauded schoolchildren who received A’s and B’s on their report cards. But 24 hours before the congregants gathered to sing hymns and take communion, a judge had acquitted a Cleveland police officer of manslaughter for his role in a car pursuit that ended with two unarmed black people fatally shot. The not-guilty verdict sparked demonstrations Saturday that began in orderly fashion but ended with dozens of arrests and prompted conversations at Elizabeth…