Last week, a spokesman for Mayor Frank Jackson brushed off the idea that Cleveland had anything to learn from Ferguson, Missouri, where the killing of an unarmed young black man, Michael Brown, by police has caused massive protests and civil unrest. “Questions about lessons learned from Ferguson and the preparations Cleveland might take ahead of a similarly incendiary incident were unworthy of a response,” said Jackson spokesman Daniel Williams, according to the Plain Dealer’s Brandon Blackwell.
A few days later, a Cleveland police officer shot and killed a 12-year-old black boy, Tamir Rice, allegedly because the officer felt threatened by a realistic looking toy pellet gun that the boy had on his person.
The officers were responding to a 911 call reporting “a guy with a pistol” on a swing set at the Cudell Recreation Center on Cleveland’s near west side, pulling the gun from his pants and “scaring the s—t out of everyone.”
The man who called 911 told dispatchers that the “guy” was “probably a juvenile,” and twice said that “the gun was probably fake,” an assumption that was corroborated by … Click here to continue reading at Belt Magazine
