CLEVELAND — A Black Lives Matter Cleveland organizer said Cleveland Mayor Bibb is spreading harmful rhetoric. The mayor put judges on blast while talking about violent crime in the city last month.
Bibb claimed some judges put repeat offenders with gun violations back on the streets.
News 5 Investigators have been asking for more information about the mayor’s statements for two weeks.
After the public lashing of the judges, the city and the mayor have gone silent.
When Bibb announced his summer crime reduction plan last month, he was fired up.
“I want to reduce violent crime,” Bibb said.
He was especially fired up when he brought up judges.
“And another thing I didn’t mention; judicial accountability. Some of our judges are letting repeat offenders with gun violations back on our streets. That’s frankly unacceptable,” Bibb said.
Yet, the mayor did not give concrete examples.
“And that’s frankly very harmful problematic rhetoric,” said Black Lives Matter Cleveland Organizer Kareem Henton.
Henton is also a proponent of bail reform.
Henton said Bibb’s comments could lead to judges giving higher bonds to people who don’t deserve and can’t afford them, which could lead to more jail overcrowding.
“It definitely does damage because we’re in the era where people recognize or acknowledge that we have a criminal justice system that has been failing... a criminal justice system that has incarcerated people or left people incarcerated languishing in jail purely because they are poor regardless if they’ve committed the crime,” Henton said.
The same day of the mayor’s summer crime news conference, News 5 Investigators emailed Bibb’s spokesperson asking for specific examples.
She said they’d do some digging.
The next day, we followed up on our request and were told, not yet. We’ve asked three more times since, and still nothing.
“It creates an atmosphere where judges are reluctant to do their job equitably,” Henton said.
With the mayor’s deafening silence, News 5 Investigators did our own digging, and one case stands out.
Tamara McLoyd, who killed Cleveland police officer Shane Bartek. Police say she shot at a woman in 2020 in a case that was dismissed.
RELATED: Tamara McLoyd found guilty for the murder of Cleveland Police Officer Shane Bartek
Records show she cut a deal with prosecutors in 2021 and got probation in an online dating robbery case.
Days later, police say she robbed a pizza shop at gunpoint. She wasn’t arrested until after Bartek was killed.
“I get the concerns, but I just think that those things are really feeding into, it’s feeding into that pipeline to prison,” Henton said.
Cuyahoga County Administrative and Presiding Judge Brendan Sheehan said the Court of Common Pleas weighs gun crime allegations and any previous criminal record when setting appropriate bonds.
Both the prosecution and defense can give input. Judges also use GPS monitoring.
Sheehan said he hadn’t been given the opportunity to speak with Bibb about his concerns but looks forward to the discussion.
If the city has examples of judges acting inappropriately or data showing a dangerous trend of early releases, again, News 5 asks publicly to share that information, and we’ll investigate that too.
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