By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers ( www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com ) and ( www.clevelandurbannews.com ). 1 / 7
CLEVELAND, Ohio- The United Pastors in Mission, the Baptist Ministers Conference, the Mount Pleasant Ministerial Alliance, East Cleveland Concerned Pastors for Progress, Black elected officials, Cleveland NAACP Executive Director Sheila Wright, family members of rape and murder victims, and community activists gathered on August 2 for a well attended press conference, balloon launch and rally in East Cleveland that drew Cleveland news television stations, 3, 5, 8, and 19 and the Call and Post Newspaper, an event billed as a stop the violence against women rally. But the gathering suddenly took an unexpected turn as greater Cleveland Black clergy, led by Greater Love Missionary Baptist Church Bishop Eugene Ward Jr. (pictured), called out Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty (pictured) as a police prosecutor who promotes White women victimized by violence while ignoring similarly situated Black women, and who allegedly protects White Cleveland cops that gun down unarmed young Black women with a hail of 137 bullets. "We remember that the police endorsed you Mr. McGinty and we will not go away," said Bishop Ward, referencing support for McGinty's campaign last year for county prosecutor by the Cleveland police union, and police murder late last year by 13 Cleveland cops of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Tim Russell. (both pictured) (Editor's Note: Read more heated quotes from Bishop Ward later on in this article from Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read online Black newspaper). 2 / 7
The rally event highlighted violence against non-black women Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight by convicted rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro at his home on Cleveland's west side, the 11 Black women murdered on Imperial Avenue by serial killer Anthony Sowell on the city's largely Black east side, and the recent murders of Black women Angela Deskins, Sherellda Terry, and Lateshia Sheeley. Their decomposed remains were found wrapped in garbage bags, all 3 bodies found in or around vacant buildings near the intersection of Shaw and Hayden Avenues in East Cleveland, and their murders allegedly at the hands of accused serial killer Michael Madison. The family of Sheeley, including her mother, was there, and prayed with the community. It was a sad affair, but it also had uplifting speakers and a coming together of the Black community. Imperial Women, an activist organization and organizing group for the rally, among other groups, and other activists groups, including Black on Black Crime Inc, Audacity of Hope Foundation, the Carl Stokes Brigade, and Revolution Books, demanded federal and state assistance relative to the epidemic of violence against women in greater Cleveland. Black clergy, through United Pastors in Mission Executive Director The Rev. Tony Minor, joined community activists in calling on President Obama and Ohio Gov. John Kasich to bring in necessary resources to curb the tide of violence against women in the majority Black cities of Cleveland and East Cleveland. Then it was on where Bishop Ward, a popular long time pastor at Greater Love Missionary Baptist Church in Cleveland and a member of the United Pastor's in Mission and the Mount. Pleasant Ministerial Alliance, lit into McGinty, who did not attend the rally. 3 / 7
Ward was supported though by activists and others at the rally, particularly fellow Black clergy. "Prosecutor McGinty you have been more than visible and larger than life as it pertains to Ariel Castro and have held press conferences and sat at the table for verdicts and sentencing," said Bishop Ward at the rally. "But what about the 13 exterminators that blatantly took the life of Malissa Williams along with Timothy Russell? When do you bring these professional hoodlums to justice?" That episode, which culminated in 137 rounds of ammunition shot by Cleveland police at Williams, 30, and the driver of the car, Russell, 43, followed a car chase that began late last year in downtown Cleveland and ended in neighboring East Cleveland. It has caused racial unrest in the two impoverished communities, both among the cities of Cuyahoga County, Ohio's largest. The 13 police officers at issue have not been charged and are still on the job as if nothing has happened. McGinty, 62, is a crafty White Democratic politician that people in general either love or love to hate who has some inroads to the Black community through a few Black leaders and a handful of Black elected officials, and the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party. He has reluctantly refused to seek a possible Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indictment against the 13 White cops that killed Russell and Williams and has, during the Ariel Castro case and otherwise, publicly, and via press conferences, commended Cleveland police and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office. And he has used employees from his office like Lilly Miller to call Blacks "nigger" on the Internet and to demand that they be hanged if they complain about him, and will also allegedly harass them further through Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Brian Corrigan, a drunk on the bench who just this year 4 / 7
was convicted of DUI. McGinty is a former common pleas judge himself who was elected for the first time just last year, and after Bill Mason resigned to become a partner with the Cleveland based office of the law firm of Bricker and Eckler. A popular Democrat too, Mason left the county prosecutor's office after two terms, and toward the end of the second one. He left amid conclusion of a county public corruption probe spearheaded by the FBI and pushed by the Plain Dealer Newspaper, and Republicans, one that targeted Democrats, and rightfully so in many instances, some said, but not to the extent that county Republicans have been squeaky clean. And that probe netted prison for some of the more than 60 of them that, among others, were mainly businessman, two former common pleas judges, and former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora and former county auditor Frank Russo, both once powerful with the county Democratic party. Dimora is serving what some say is a prejudicial 28 -year sentence on racketeering convictions and a host of other federal charges. A few others believe the popular Dimora, a former Bedford Heights mayor and one time chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic party, got what he deserved. A assistant county prosecutor and common pleas judge for nearly 17 years before he was elected to county prosecutor, McGinty was probably the most controversial on the 34-member predominantly White Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas bench. 5 / 7
But the cops have influence too, particularly the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, which is led by controversial president Jeffrey Follmer, a strong union head, and a deviant one if it is necessary to protect the interests of the larger membership. But that did not stop greater Cleveland's Black clergy from taking on Cleveland police at the East Cleveland August 2 violence against women rally, though police from neither Cleveland nor East Cleveland were there "What about the 13 murders, what about the 13 killers,?" asked Bishop Ward at the rally. "Those 13 officers should be riding with Sowell, Castro and Madison for the injustice done." Black elected officials in attendance at the rally include East Cleveland City Council President Dr. Joy Jordan, East Cleveland Councilman Nate Martin, and Cleveland Ward 6 Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell. Other Black Clergy there include Baptist Ministers Conference President David Hunter, who is pastor of Bright Star Missionary Baptist Church in East Cleveland, East Cleveland Concerned Pastors for Progress President Shawn Braxton, who is pastor of New Life Cathedral Church in East Cleveland, and the Reverends Henry Gates and Aaron Phillips. Activists that rallied include Kathy Wray Coleman, Art McKoy, Khalid Samad, Al Porter, Ada Averyhart, Amy Hurd, Donna Walker-Brown, Richard Peery, Charlie Bibb, Griot Y-Von, the Rev. Pamela Pinkney, Willie Stokes, Patricia Rowell, Bill Swain, and Dr. Stewart and Valerie Robinson. 6 / 7
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