Cops kill three people in three days

“He was doing real good,” Hugh Steele said of his son Aaron. Aaron had just completed training at an auto mechanic school and had begun working for the Regional Transit Authority.

“It’s a shame that something like this can happen when a kid just went somewhere to drop his girlfriend off and came back home to get prepared for work.”

“Something like this” refers to Aaron’s death May 8 at the hands of Cleveland police, who initially stopped the young man for playing his radio too loud. Police, who allege Aaron pointed a gun at them, fired a barrage of bullets. According to the coroner, Aaron was shot 16 times, 13 times in the back. Seeking further justification, police are claiming Aaron Steele had crack cocaine in his pocket—as if that were a capital offense.

This was the second killing this year by Cleveland police, but not the last. On May 9 police attempted to pull over Steven Ray, who they supposedly thought was conducting a drug sale with two other men—while driving! The high speed chase that followed gave Ray a broken leg and killed John J. Rankin, a driver of a separate vehicle who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Witnesses say that orders from superiors to halt the chase in the interest of public safety were ignored. “They did not stop for one second until the accident happened,” a woman told the news media.

Unbelievably, the very next day, 22-year-old Ira Mitchell died in a car crash after fleeing police, who claim Mitchell was also involved in a drug transaction. A woman in another vehicle was also injured.

The daily newspaper, the Plain Dealer, considers it newsworthy that just three days after Steele’s killing “the deaths this week have yet to spark any significant protests.”

In fact, activists are respectfully waiting to hear the wishes of the grieving families before taking action. By the Plain Dealer’s own accounts, Steele’s family does not view the killing as justified. A May 13 letter to the editor questions the policy of “engaging in high-speed pursuit in a heavily populated area.” Support for the police is hardly unanimous.

While Steele, Ray and Mitchell all were Black, the newspaper insists that racism is not an issue. “The line appears to be drawn between law-and-order supporters and those who either subscribe to thug culture or had a personal connection with the suspects.” How can such biased reporting pass for news?

In the same article reporter Gabriel Baird recounts last month’s tragic shooting of 15-year-old Arthur Buford. When Buford allegedly tried to rob Damon Wells outside his home at gunpoint, Wells shot and killed Buford. Baird calls it “perplexing” that Buford’s peers created a memorial shrine with stuffed animals. Wells has been portrayed as a hero. In fact, Wells, distraught over having killed a child, has stated that at one time he could have been Buford.

Continuing the demonization of Buford and Steele, white columnist Regina Brett calls for “a united front against lawlessness.” She makes the outrageous claim that “this is the new civil rights movement.” Brett cites the many Black readers who have called and written in support of Wells.

Most everyone wants to live in an environment that is safe and drug-free. However, the murderous forces of so-called law-and-order will never get the drugs out of the communities. Some are actually drug dealers themselves, from the cop on the beat to the CIA. The repeated claims by police of having found drugs on those they kill are suspicious.

Some of Cleveland’s African-American neighborhoods have an unemployment rate of 80 percent. Why not make drug treatment readily available and why not give the youth jobs at union wages?

The Cleveland Lucasville Five Defense Committee will demonstrate on May 17, combining its demand for freedom for the Lucasville Five and Mumia Abu-Jamal with a call for justice for Steele, Rankin, and Mitchell.

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