MANSFIELD: Tim McGinty – Man in the Middle

By Mansfield Frazier

Anyone other than Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty would no doubt be feeling like the classic man stuck between a rock and a hard place: No matter how his office handled the case that has become known far and wide simply as “137 shots,” a large percentage of the community was going to be upset with him … indeed, outraged.

However, when both sides of a contentious issue are upset with the decision … that usually means the right one was made. The two counts of voluntary manslaughter (first degree felonies) lodged against Patrolman Michael Brelo, who fired 49 of the shots into the vehicle carrying driver Timothy Russell and passenger Malissa Williams, killing them both, and misdemeanor charges against six sergeants for dereliction of duty demonstrated evenhandedness that everyone who wants to as quickly as possible put this ugly incident behind us should applaud.

Cynics from the black community will no doubt fault McGinty for not seeking felony charges against the 12 additional Cleveland police officers that took part in firing more than 100 shots into the car. Indeed, some are already saying the only reason the prosecutor sought any indictments at all was because the feds are in town investigating the Cleveland Division of Police.

Conversely, critics from the police community are already blasting McGinty for his successful efforts in bringing forth the charges, contending they were politically motivated. But both sides are dead wrong.

Like him or not, Tim McGinty is his own man … and so far in his tenure as county prosecutor virtually all of his rulings have been tough, but fair. And believe me, I (and a bunch of others) have been watching him like hawks.

Unlike his predecessor Bill Mason, who came into office seeking a higher one, McGinty doesn’t have to concern himself with the politics of public opinion. Mason sincerely believed that posting high conviction rates was the pathway to the Governor’s Mansion, so fairness often got short shrift under his watch. But McGinty, on the other hand, currently has the only job he wants for the rest of his career, and knows that he can keep it until he decides to retire. Politically, he can afford to be fair.

But an indictment is not a conviction, and a jury still has to weigh in on the ultimate fate of Brelo — and the chances of another Rodney King verdict are all too real, this being Cuyahoga County. The local police union is notorious for defending wrongdoing by officers and in spite of the fact an acquittal in Brelo’s case would set race relations back 50 years. Nonetheless, an all-out effort to paint the victims in this case as being responsible for their own deaths has already begun.

“Why didn’t they simply stop?” has been the refrain from police supporters from day one. Their contention is that everything would have ended peacefully if Russell had simply ceased fleeing from police. But try telling that to Edward Henderson, the mentally ill man who did stop fleeing, got out of his vehicle and laid facedown on the ground … only to have his head used for a football by then-officer Martin Lentz.

Based on how black suspects are often treated by police in Cleveland, Russell was — out of fear — simply fleeing for his life, and the outcome proves it. He got to live 23 minutes longer.

Brelo’s lawyers will contend he fired 49 times (long after other officers had ceased firing) because he was in fear for his life. But as local civil rights attorney Dan Chaplin said after the indictments were announced, “If Brelo was that fearful, then he probably should not have been a policeman.”

Certainly every public servant who dons a uniform and carries a gun while seeking to “Protect and Serve” has a right to safely go home to their family at the end of their shift … but that does not give them the right to slaughter individuals who posed no threat.

Prosecutor McGinty got it right when he cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that concluded that police cannot fire on suspects after a public safety threat has ended. The only danger Brelo — who was standing on the hood of the victims’ car when he fired 15 of the shots through the windshield — faced was from the other officers who had formed a circular firing squad.

“This was now a stop-and-shoot — no longer a chase-and-shoot,” McGinty said at the press conference, “[and] the law does not allow for a stop-and-shoot.”

 

 

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.

 

 

 

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