Michael Brelo (left)
Recently, I read about a 2012
case in Cleveland, Ohio, where the police opened fire on a
car containing a man and woman, 30-year-old Malissa Williams
and 43-year-old, Timothy Russell, suspecting they were
involved in illegal drug activity. A call to dispatch to run
the couple's license plate revealed the car was "clean."
However, a police officer began tailing the couple's car
anyway, in what turned into a high speed chase. The officer
signaled for other cops to join the chase. When they
cornered the couple in a middle school parking lot, within
20 seconds the officers opened fire on the couple (much like
police sped right up to 12-year-old Tamir Rice and opened
fire within seconds, killing the innocent boy).
Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell's bullet riddled car
One officer, Michael Brelo,
stood on the hood of the car and fired 49 bullets into the
vehicle, which is psychotic. To riddle a car with 137
bullets, shooting each victim over 20 times, sends a
horrible message to the public. Brelo was placed on trial
and acquitted, as it could not be determined if one of the
49 bullets he fired into the car caused the fatalities. That
was a poor excuse for letting a murderer walk free, in
conduct indicative of the cop outs and loopholes being
invoked to erode justice and the public's human rights in
American in a number of national cases.
Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell
Brelo and his fellow officers in
the incident should have been fired and sent to prison, as
they participated in murder. Brelo in particular has mental
problems to have gone that far and is a danger to the
public. Whether or not the couple had been involved in drug
activity (they were not) no one deserves to be killed in
such a manner. It is extreme violence. These heavy handed
tactics by some, not all police, is leaving an alarming
number of Americans dead, particularly black people, in
preventable tragedies.
STORY SOURCE
Cleveland officer not guilty over deaths of two people shot at 137 times by police
Cleveland officer not guilty over deaths of two people shot at 137 times by police
Saturday 23 May 2015 13.43 EDT - Last
modified on Sunday 31 May 2015 16.36 EDT - A Cleveland
police officer who stood on the hood of a car and fired his
gun 49 times through the windshield at two unarmed
passengers was on Saturday found not guilty on two counts of
voluntary manslaughter. Officer Michael Brelo was also found
not guilty of felonious assault, and discharged. He remains
on unpaid leave.
The federal Department of Justice announced
a review of the decision. In a statement to which civil
rights division head Vanita Gupta was one of three names
attached, the DoJ said: “We will now review the testimony
and evidence presented in the state trial … to
collaboratively determine what, if any, additional steps are
available and appropriate.” Protests followed the verdict,
as civic leaders called for calm...
First These Cops Shot 140 Bullets at a Black Couple. Then They Complained About Reverse Racism...and a federal judge just shut them down.
Tue Dec. 8, 2015 4:29 PM EST - The
windshield of the car driven by Timothy Russell on the night
of November 29, 2012. Following a high-speed chase,
Cleveland police officers fired 140 shots at Russell and his
passenger, Malissa Williams.
Today, a federal judge threw out a yearlong
case centering on a peculiar claim: When non-black cops
shoot and kill black people in Cleveland, they face stiffer
repercussions than black cops who kill black people. Nine
police officers—eight white, one Latino—claimed that they
were subjected to "reverse discrimination" and "mental
anguish" after a controversial 2012 incident in which they
killed two unarmed African Americans in a fusillade of
nearly 140 bullets. The suit, filed just days after a
Cleveland police officer shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir
Rice, alleged that the officers were singled out due to
their race and were unfairly punished while the state
investigated the shooting. Their claim of victimization,
ruled Judge James Gwin in response to the city's request for
summary judgment, was "illogic."
The events behind the case occurred on the
night of November 29, 2012. According to the Ohio Bureau of
Investigation's report on the incident, a plainclothes
officer named John Jordan saw a black man and a black woman
sitting in a parked car in East Cleveland. He suspected they
were "involved in illegal drug activity," so he called in
the vehicle's license plate. The dispatcher told him it was
"clean," but Jordan decided to search the vehicle anyway, he
later admitted to investigators. When the car's driver,
43-year-old Timothy Russell, drove away, Jordan followed and
pulled him over for failing to use a turn signal. When the
officer got out of his unmarked car, Russell took off. In
the space of 18 seconds, 13 cops fired nearly 140 rounds at
the car. One officer jumped on the hood and shot through the
windshield at least 15 times.
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