Cleveland Community Relations Director Blaine Griffin, along with other members of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's administrative leadership team, including Yvonne Pointer and law enforcement personnel, will meet with members of the Imperial Women Coalition to address their concerns, including issues as to the Imperial Ave. Murders and the mistreatment of Blacks and women by police, the courts and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
“The meeting is confirmed,” said Griffin, who set it for Mon., May 2 at 6:00 pm at his office at Cleveland City Hall, 601 Lakeside Ave (Note: Sign in at desk and be directed to the location. And for further information contact Imperial Women affiliates Kathy Wray Coleman at 216-932-3114 or Roz McAllister at 216-577-0466).
“We are pleased that Mr. Griffin has again opened his doors to the grassroots community, poor people, women and others on these pertinent issues of public concern,” said Coleman, a leader of the Imperial Women. “And we hope that he will push for a city investigation around the Imperial Ave. Murders and for dismissal of all charges against Collinwood High School graduate Destini Bronaugh where we cannot allow non-Black city prosecutors to criminalize innocent Black children for a peaceful student protest over teacher layoffs and school closings that is protected under the First Amendment."
Coleman said that in addition to other issues they need Griffin to step in and seek an investigation as to why some new born Black babies of Cleveland are being taken from Black mothers and girls and handed to White families when state law requires that all efforts are undertaken to reunite children with their biological parents, including poor Black parents.
<div>The Imperial Women, members of Black on Black Crime and the Carl Stokes Brigade, the People's Forum, the Oppressed People's Nation, Ohio Family Rights, the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, the Lucasville Uprising Freedom Network, People for the Imperial Act, Workers World, the People's Fight Back Center, Bail Out the People Movement, People for the Fair Treatment of Joaquin Hicks and Advocates for Cleveland's African-American Museum make up the Imperial Women Coalition. They have asked support from the mayor, Griffin and other city officials as to the following coalition issues:
-An immediate investigation as to the release from custody in 2008 of serial killing suspect Anthony Sowell in spite of a credible and since prosecuted complaint by Gladys Wade, who said she was subjected to an attempted rape by Sowell in 2008 but got away. Six of the 11 murdered women of Imperial Avenue were murdered after Sowell's release from custody in 2008. (Note: Sowell is now in custody and awaiting trial on numerous counts of murder, kidnapping and rape, among other charges).
-The stopping by the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services of allegedly stealing some new born Black babies born to Black women and girls in Cleveland, Oh. to hand to White families rather than working out issues with Black families as required by state law. (Note: Angelique Cunningham has reported that three babies born to her two daughters, Reketta Berringer, 19, and Shardae Berringer 16, were taken when under four months old to hand to White families allegedly followed by harassment from county social workers. The family and its supporters shall attend the Blaine Griffin meeting to seek support and will meet with Community Activist Art McKoy next week on the issue).
-The necessity of a state law proposed by state legislators that precludes Ohio trial court judges from being represented by county and city prosecutors and law directors for municipalities or otherwise in legal proceedings such as the filings of petitions for writs of prohibitions that seek compliance with the law and other legal authorities and affidavits of prejudice against the judges where these prosecutors and law directors that bring charges against people for municipalities and the State of Ohio are in essence their lawyers and therefore have undue influence. Such potential influence includes sentencing, motions to dismiss malicious prosecution cases against Blacks and others and a host of other anti-due process and anti-Democratic activities. (Note: Judges that have been represented in legal proceedings either by the offices of the county prosecutor or Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi include former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough and Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty, whom activists want removed from the bench for allegedly harassing Blacks and women and having a blatant disregard for the law. McGinty's order to send the son of a Black activist to prison for allegedly violating probation was overturned by a state appellate court last year that said that the probation period was up. He was also a source to the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper on medical and mental health information of Black defendants before him including alleged serial killer Anthony Sowell. Any efforts by McGinty to run for county prosecutor next year shall be challenged by activists as detrimental to the community, the Black community in particular).
-The request for support for a state law pushed by Ohio State legislators that requires that Ohio trial court judges are assigned and reassigned to cases at all times by computer generated random draw and that those judges are sitting judges accountable to the community where some of them like Mary Grace Trimboli of Toledo, Oh. are not judges anymore but are brought in to courts in Lyndhurst, Berea, Cleveland and elsewhere to hear cases, and to sometimes fix them for the prosecution. Trimboli is accused of being brought in to municipal courts in Cuyahoga County as a traveling visiting judge to harass Black defendants being maliciously prosecuted with a push by the Ohio Supreme Court (Note: Some courts in Ohio initially assign judges by random draw, but it is when judges recuse themselves or are removed from cases that potential case fixing and the handpicking of judges by Cuyahoga Administrative and Presiding Judge Nancy Fuerst and other judges for certain cases occur. i.e. a hanging judge to push plea bargains against innocent young Black men and otherwise. The Cleveland NAACP is condoning this and other illegal activity by the judges because several of its leaders are attorneys and they benefit financially for their silence).
-The request for support for the dismissal of all misdemeanor criminal charges before Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Lynn McLaughlin Murray against Destini Bronaugh, 19, the Collinwood High School graduate subject to malicious prosecution by Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi and the City of Cleveland in retaliation for a peaceful student protest at the school in May around school closings and teacher layoffs. (Note: We seek an investigation of police conduct around this issue and a report to the community).
-The request for support for Rebecca Whitby, 25 (Note: We seek an investigation of police conduct around this issue and a report to the community as to whether Whitby was beat up illegally and called a "nigger" by Fifth District police who have yet to be punished by the non-minority safety director and chief of police).
- The request for support for the dismissal of the erroneous resisting arrest charge leveled against journalist Kathy Wray Coleman by Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi on behalf of the City of Cleveland for her writings in the Call and Post Newspaper and her community activism around the need for fair and constitutional judicial assignments of judges and other community matters. The charge was elevated via prosecutorial misconduct and arbitrary behavior by former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, and the illegal activity is now being condoned by her replacement, Cleveland Judge Lynn McLaughlin Murray, in exchange for a judicial endorsement, though she knows that sole White male arresting deputy sheriff Gerald Pace did not accuse Coleman of resisting his illegal arrest or even testify as required by the Sixth Amendment. The charge must be dismissed in compliance with the U.S. Constitution, the Ohio Rules of Evidence, the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure and other authorities.
- The reorganizing of the City of Cleveland's top level law enforcement leadership team to reflect decision making activity that does not disenfranchise Blacks and women and that addresses a diversified model of leadership in that the mayor has appointed no Blacks or women as law director, safety director, ems commissioner, chief of police or safety director in a predominantly Black major metropolitan city.
-The assistance via grants or otherwise to renew Cleveland's African-American Museum under the leadership of Executive Director Frances Caldwell to address hostorical issues of the contributions of African-Americans to the city of Cleveland and elsewhere.
-The push for fair trials in the Cuyahoga County of Common Pleas for Black men and others and a request that either all charges or dropped or a retrial is had before Judge Daniel Gaul as to Joaquin Hicks, now serving 61 years to life in prison, for allegedly planning a robbery that led to the murder of one former Cleveland Clinic employee and a gunshot wound to the head of another. Hicks was not convicted of murder or of the head wound shooting and says he was not there where three men serving time on the matter have recanted and Gaul allegedly allowed jurors to deliberate with their cell phones while a blade was placed ubder Hicks' chair at
trial to prejudice the jury.
By Kathy Wray Coleman and Roz McAllister on behalf of The Imperial Women (216-932-3114)