The “Black Lives Matter” protesters are out in force after the Brelo verdict where a policeman was acquitted of charges in the shooting deaths of two black Cleveland citizens.
Watch below:
Yes, Cleveland police Officer Michael Brelo stood on a car and shot the unarmed black occupants 15 times just after officers first riddled it with bullets. But a judge ruled Saturday that, partly because Brelo reasonably believed he was in danger, he’s not guilty of a crime.
Concluding just one of several police use-of-force cases prompting outrage in Cleveland, a Cuyahoga County judge decided that Brelo was not guilty of voluntary manslaughter and felonious assault in the 2012 deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams following a 22-mile car chase.
Emotions among people upset at the verdict ran high outside the Cleveland courtroom. Some held up signs and chanted “no justice, no peace,” words heard in recent months in places like Ferguson, Missouri, and New York, where massive demonstrations sprung up after African-Americans died at the hands of white police officers.
“All I know is that I don’t trust police no more. No police. None,” said Malissa Williams’ brother Alfredo Williams. “I can’t recover from this. …This verdict isn’t real. This verdict is fake.”
All the usual morons are there:
Apparently a police motorcycle ran over someone's foot. #TamirRice #BreloTrial https://t.co/H5wyj2UzFp
— deray mckesson (@deray) May 23, 2015
Solidarity among protesters. The march is back on, heading up Prospect. #BreloVerdict pic.twitter.com/70mcUYH54g
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) May 23, 2015
Protesters heading back toward downtown #cleveland. Have been walking for 7 hours now. #BreloVerdict pic.twitter.com/xhVvdtnZtt
— Homa Bash (@HomaBash) May 23, 2015
More media than protestors right now outside Justice Center as judge delivers #breloverdict pic.twitter.com/EbMEFdjrM6
— Dawn Kendrick (@DawnKendrickTV3) May 23, 2015
Sidewalk outside of Justice Center #BreloVerdict pic.twitter.com/K3Xy88KfSY
— Kristin Volk (@Kristin_Volk) May 23, 2015
Let me just say.. If I need to go downtown and I see this blocking the street somebody getting ran over #BreloVerdict pic.twitter.com/6GE1fQLS1f
— David Lamar (@ImDavidLamar) May 23, 2015
This is what "protecting and serving" looks like to the American justice system. #BreloVerdict pic.twitter.com/p8wK5RNnVs
— Terrell J. Starr (@Russian_Starr) May 23, 2015
Nothing to add. #BreloVerdict pic.twitter.com/Z1l9WWfq8K
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) May 23, 2015
The #BreloVerdict protest has reached the Terminal Tower. Utterly peaceful. Let me make that perfectly clear. pic.twitter.com/d5dSir1uNs
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) May 23, 2015
https://twitter.com/XLNB/status/602132810237751296
More about what led to the two deaths:
What led to the deaths of Russell and Williams, prosecutors said, was a chase that began when a car driven by Russell backfired — a noise that officers mistakenly thought was caused by gunshots — in Cleveland on November 29, 2012.
It turned out that neither Russell, 43, nor Williams, 30, were armed, but Russell led numerous police officers on a 22-mile chase — sometimes at speeds above 100 mph — before ramming a police car in a middle school parking lot in East Cleveland, police said.
Brelo and 12 other officers fired more than 100 times in eight seconds at the car, after which, according to prosecutors, the pair could no longer be a threat.
But Brelo exited his car, got on top of Williams’ car’s hood and “fired at least 15 shots … downward through the windshield into the victims at close range as he stood on the hood of Mr. Russell’s car,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGlinty said.