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Ohio AG said: "This Could Happen Again. The police department system failed these officers and they failed the general public. You can’t look at that report and come up with any other conclusion.” His statements echoed Neely Fuller who said : "You Should expect to be killed in the name of racism anytime, any place. You have been marked as an enemy because you are Black. Keep your protest signs because this will happen again. [mp3 Skip forward to 22:46 ]
(In photo, white Mayor Frank Jackson defends the actions of white police chief Michael McGrath at a press conference on February 5, 2013. Mostly white cops shot unarmed Black couple 137 times in 20 seconds.)
From [HERE HERE
All told, 47 of the 137 rounds fired by 13 Cleveland officers hit their targets -- 43-year-old Timothy Russell and 30-year-old Malissa Williams, according to the Cuyahoga County medical examiner. Dr. Thomas P. Gilson reported that 24 of the rounds riddled the head, neck, body and an arm of Williams, who was a passenger in the Chevrolet Malibu SS, and 23 rounds struck the head, neck and extremities of driver Timothy Russell. 12 of the 13 officers involved were white. [MORE [don't blame the gun or incompetence]
Police Claim they heard a Gun Shot & Saw a Gun Thrown Out of a Window: Attorney General Found Car was Prone to Loud Backfiring from Muffler
“It was total lack of control,” Attorney General Mike DeWine said during a news conference at the state crime laboratory. He turned over the report to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty, who said he would take the case to a grand jury to determine whether any of the officers should face criminal charges. Officials didn’t announce a timeframe for the grand jury review, and McGinty said he hadn’t drawn any conclusions about charges.
The report did not assign blame to any of the officers but said “systemic failures” in the Cleveland Police Department led to the escalation of the Nov. 29 chase and the fatal shootings of the car’s driver, Timothy Russell, 43, and his 30-year-old passenger, Malissa Williams. Both were Black and unarmed.
They were killed after they led the police on a chase that began outside the Justice Center. A police official said two Cleveland officers heard a gunshot and believed it came from a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu that David Russell owned. Russell said he gave the car involved in the chase to his brother, and that it had a bad muffler - which could account for the sound. Then the car sped away and the officers chased them. AG Dewine found that the car in fact was prone to loud backfiring. An officer also claimed that he saw a gun thrown out of the car during the high speed chase. No evidence of a gun being fired from inside the car was found according to Dewine. No guns were found.
Officers from Bratenahl, East Cleveland, the State Highway Patrol and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office joined in the pursuit. It ended on a dead-end access street in East Cleveland, near Heritage Middle School, where police claim Russell “violently rammed a police car and almost struck an officer,” Follmer said.
The chase continued for 25 minutes, reaching speeds of 120 miles-per-hour, before ending in the parking lot of Heritage Middle School. Russell ended up on a dead-end access road to an East Cleveland middle school. There approximately 25 polcie officers converged on the Black man's car. They surrounded the Malibu, and some officers were out of their cars when Russell rammed another police car, Gardner said. Officers then unloaded on the car firing at least 137 shots in about 20 seconds. [MORE
“Command failed, communications failed, the system failed,” DeWine said. He said that nearly 60 vehicles involved in the chase failed to follow city policy and joined the high-speed pursuit without asking a supervisor's permission.
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