© 2024 Ideastream Public Media

1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 916-6100 | (877) 399-3307

WKSU is a public media service licensed to Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
News
To contact us with news tips, story ideas or other related information, e-mail newsstaff@ideastream.org.

Meeting Canceled Between Greater Cleveland Clergy, McGinty

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty (stock photo by Brian Bull/ideastream)
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty (stock photo by Brian Bull/ideastream)

By ideastream's Brian Bull

A meeting that had been scheduled for tomorrow morning between a group of Cleveland-area ministers and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor will not take place. 

According to the office of prosecutor Timothy McGinty, the United Pastors in Mission last week extended an invitation for him to meet with its members, presumably about the lack of indictments in the Tamir Rice case.  The organization represents roughly a hundred mostly African-American churches in the Greater Cleveland area. 

The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor has stated that he couldn’t recommend indictments against two Cleveland Police Officers for the November 2014 incident, where the 12-year-old Rice was fatally shot while carrying an air pellet gun.

Emails sent to WCPN by the Mount Zion Church – where the meeting was to be held – say those plans are canceled, but gave no reason and did not say if the meeting might be rescheduled.

Meanwhile, Pastor Andrew Clark of the Federation of Network Ministries, says there’s a separate “ad hoc” gathering of clergy expecting to meet with McGinty on January 22 nd.   Clark says they’ll talk to McGinty about the “horrific” situation over Rice’s death, and explore where things go from here in terms of, as he says, “justice and fair policing” in Cleveland.