No pay for killer cops!
That is what the family members of Malissa Williams were chanting earlier this week in front of Cleveland’s city hall in response to news that Michael Brelo – one of the 13 cops who fatally shot both Williams and her friend Timothy Russell 137 times earlier this year – will be back policing the streets any day now.
“Everybody knows this is murder,” said Alfredo Williams, Malissa’s brother said at a press conference on Tuesday. “I have never heard of anything like this in my life. He knows he did wrong.”
Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell were shot by 13 Cleveland Police Officers 137 times after a lengthy police chase where it is believed Williams and Russell were on the hunt for some drugs.
Both were homeless at the time and had previous run-ins with the Cleveland Police Department.
Brelo was acquitted in May of this year of firing 49 of the 137 bullets that killed both Williams and Russell when he jumped in the hood of their car to shoot them and reloaded his fire arm twice in the process.
Brelo faced two voluntary manslaughter charges but was acquitted after Cuyahoga Common Pleas Judge John P. O’Donnell found him not guilty after a four-week trial that prompted protests throughout Ohio.
“This hurts me so bad to my heart,” Alfredo Williams said. “When I walk down the street or I go to the store I get stopped by the police and the first thing he say ‘oh, look he reached for something [or] he pulled something’… I get shot? Right now I feel like my life is in danger.”
Alfredo, along with the fellow protesters said they had a special message for Cleveland’s Director of Public Safety, Michael McGrath along with the rest of the Mayor’s faculty.
“We are not accepting anything less than Brelo being fired,” said an unnamed supporter at the rally.
“The community members and the family are saying the same thing,” chimed in another protester. “They don’t want Officer Brelo on the street. They don’t feel safe with him on the street.”
Brelo last made headlines in June—just four days after his acquittal—for getting arrested and charged with assault after a drunken spat with his twin brother Mark.
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