Zimpapers Logo

CLEVELAND. — Some 71 people were arrested in Cleveland overnight during protests that flared after a police officer was found not guilty in the shooting deaths of an unarmed black man and a woman following a high-speed car chase in 2012, police said yesterday.

Protests were mostly peaceful after the judge’s verdict was announced on Saturday, Police Chief Calvin Williams said. But later in the day, some people “crossed the line,” assaulting bystanders in a downtown restaurant area, briefly blocking a major highway and disrupting business at a shopping centre, he told a news conference.

The demonstrations were the latest in a national outcry over law enforcement’s use of lethal force against minority groups. The deaths of unarmed black men during confrontations with police in Ferguson, Missouri, New York City, Baltimore and elsewhere have spawned protests and occasional violent outbursts around the country.

Williams said police in Cleveland “gave people the space and a safe environment” to demonstrate peacefully, adding, “We would not allow people to commit acts of violence against persons or property.”

Protesters took to streets after Judge John O’Donnell acquitted police officer Michael Brelo (31) on charges of voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault in the deaths of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell.

The judge ruled Brelo acted reasonably in shooting the two while standing on the hood of their surrounded car and firing multiple rounds through the windshield. Brelo was one of a group of officers who fired on the car at the end of a chase that began in downtown Cleveland after reports of gunfire coming from the car.

Malissa Williams and Russell were black and Brelo, a former Marine, is white. — Reuters.