An emerging collective of recent Cleveland Heights High School alums and other young Cleveland Heights residents has planned a rally and march for Sunday afternoon. The goal of the demonstration is to pressure the suburb’s leaders into holding police accountable while also continuing to speak in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protests nationwide.
“We’ve been to almost every Cleveland-based protest so far” said Desi Pelligree, a 24-year-old Cleveland Heights resident and organizer in the collective calling itself Safer Heights. “We weren’t totally in love with the message we heard at the demonstration at Severance.”
Pelligree said that as much as he and his peers loved their city, it was important to them that young people had a much more active voice in local politics. Sunday’s action has been driven by a community of young people and will include a list of demands for City Council related to police accountability.
“We want to focus on the police reform we can do here in Cleveland Heights to ensure we have a more accountable police,” he said, “but we also don’t want to take away from the larger movement.”
The event will begin at Coventry P.E.A.C.E Park at 3 p.m. After a line-up of speakers, the march will process down Coventry, turn on Mayfield, then Superior, then Euclid Hts. Boulevard, a route that intentionally traverses some of Cleveland Heights’ most highly trafficked commercial corridors.
“It’s important for a lot of people to see us,” said Pelligree. “Cleveland Heights tries to sell itself so much on its attitudes about inclusion and diversity. This gives a voice to the side that we’re not perfect, that we have a long way to go before we’re the leaders in this fight that we may see ourselves as being.”
Pelligree said that while Safer Heights was formed with this action in mind, the collective is moving toward becoming a community-based organization which will hopefully help oversee and implement changes in Cleveland Heights. “This is definitely not our last event,” Pelligree said.
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This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2020.
Wait it says ‘March For a Safer Heights” and it mentions holding Police accountable.
Interesting that we raised a generation that can’t and won’t research for truth on their own, or are incapable of finding truths about whom their biggest threat really is.
Good thing the have “Progressive Leftists” to identify the enemy for them. Convenient that the “Enemy” they are pointed to is the same one “Progressive Leftists” have been attacking for years.
Break free of the Mental Slavery and reject these poorly educated, agenda driven Communists disguised as allies.
I demand that black live matter acknowledge that they dont care about black lives when those lives are extinguished by other blacks.
Get the police fixed.
Get rid of the racists and cops that have no self control so that we can get to work on the much bigger problem.
Approximately every three days in Cleveland, a black life is ended by another black.
Great, yet another event that will turn into mayhem and destruction and violence and looting!!!
Don’t you see, these protesters will not stop until every northeast Ohio community and neighborhood resembles that of the entire city of East Cleveland!!!
I believe too many people think that what happened to George Floyd could also happen to them, even though this is extremely unlikely to occur, unless they too got arrested for committing a crime and if they too also resisted arrest.
The notion that all police officers engage in police brutality, like the Minneapolis police training officer, who place his knee on George Floyd’s neck, is as irrational as thinking that all African-Americans use illegal drugs, have a history of violent crime, and pass counterfeit money like George Floyd did.
This just isn’t so.
What should be stressed at the protest is: (1) don’t commit crimes, because if you don’t , your chances of getting arrested for committing a crime will be almost nil; (2) if you do commit a crime, don’t resist arrest, because if you do resist arrest, police officers will use force on you; and not only may you get injured, you will probably get an additional criminal charge for resisting arrest, and (3) what everyone should do, which includes the police, is to treat others like you would want them to treat you.
Police officers have a tough job, and it is should be remembered that George Floyd was a large man and a former basketball player, football player, and nightclub bouncer.
An autopsy also showed that George Floyd had used fentanyl and meth.
He also had been convicted of and served many years in prison for aggravated robbery after bursting into a pregnant woman’s home and sticking a handgun into her belly and robbing her.
Yet, despite all of this, there are millions of people, who are treating George Floyd as a hero, which just goes to prove the power of rhetoric and that there are too many people, who allow their emotions to cloud their thinking.
Shiwaku, 99% of the time, I agree with what you say but bottom line on this is George Floyd was retrained and this cop decided that he would just continue to kneel on this guys neck for and additional 3 minutes after the guy passed out. And as I said, I agree with about 99% of what you have posted, and I’ll back the police up 99% of the time as well, but I just cant in this case. That 3 minutes to me says, “you know what, I don’t care about your life in the slightest. No American should ever have that view of another American.
End of opinion.
IMHO
Radical Leftists want you and your children wiped from the Planet and George Floyd is nothing more than a vehicle for them to progress that fact.
Feel how you choose in your heart, but always remember what they’ve been taught that you represent and the recommended ways to combat you.
Not all Americans are as compassionate at you, just don’t let your guard down.
IMHO, I firmly believe that the Minneapolis police training officer, who placed his knee on George Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes used excessive force. There is overwhelming evidence that he did so, but the reasonable and fair thing to do is to hold him accountable in the Minneapolis Police Department’s administrative pre-disciplinary process, criminal proceedings, and a civil lawsuit
However, for millions– if not, tens of millions– of Americans to view ALL police officers across America as being like the Minneapolis police training officer is not fair or reasonable.
Imagine if every African-American across America were viewed by millions– or tens of millions– of Americans as being like Anthony Sowell, the infamous Cleveland serial murderer.
To do so would be not only unreasonable, but also absurd.
Yet, this is what happening right now across America.
All police officers are essentially being harassed and discriminated against because of what one Minneapolis police training officer did.
You should already realize that the reasonable and fair way to remedy an injustice is not by committing another injustice– and not only to all police officers in America, but also to innocent business owners, who had nothing to do whatsoever with the death of George Floyd.
Shiwaku, I’ll agree with all that. Right down to the vilification of an entire group based upon the actions of a few.
It will NEVER cease to amaze me that a group that professes to to hate stereotyping is the most likely to engage in it. Yep, cant say all blacks are (fill in the blank) But oh absolutely you cant lump every cop in the world together thats fine!
Do as we say not as we do, it is sad that so many millions of Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that all police officers across America are like the Minneapolis police training officer, who placed his knee on George Floyd’s neck that some have ambushed, shot, and murdered some innocent police officers, who not only had nothing to do whatsoever with George Floyd’s death, but also worked and lived in locations no where near Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The notion that you fight injustice by committing injustice is not only unreasonable, but an act of outrageous evil when protesters murder innocent people to supposedly advance their social cause.
At least one of the police officers murdered was African-American.
sam, have you heard about the autonomous antifa country they formed in downtown seattle. Its so revolutionary even their mayor approves of it. Unfortunately they are having trouble keeping it crime free. On day 3 they already have rapes and assaults that the real police cannot respond to.
do these blm folks realize their logo is a communist fist and their organization is run by a communist who funnels all the donation money to white Democrat politicians?
The protesters should spend more time thinking about what they are demanding before demanding it.
For instance, many protesters are calling for radical changes to policing in America, because a handful of bad cops across America violated their own police department’s use-of-force policies.
The reasonable remedy is not to get rid of all police officers by defunding local police departments, but rather to punish the police officers who broke their own police department’s rules.
Imagine the outcry in the African-American Community is legislators were to prohibit all African-Americans to possess a handgun, because a small percentage of African-Americans use handguns to commit violent crimes, or no one under the age of 25 could legally consume alcoholic beverages because too many college-age kids intentionally get drunk.
What is needed is more enforcement of existing police departmental rules, regulations, policies, and procedures, not radical changes.
Even if local police departments replaced every police officer with an African-American, there will sometimes still be excessive use of force during arrests, because often it is very difficult for even three or four police officers to control a large or strong person, who is aggressively resisting arrest, even if that large or strong person is a woman.