The Weekend Cleveland Didn't Burn

I noticed the trial of Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo was ending when a friend who works at the Old Angle bar up W.25th Street from me posted an innocuous statement to the effect that Cleveland doesn't like to be ugly . I had been hearing updates everyday I listened to the news for three weeks already, so it just wasn't exciting news to me. I first heard about the verdict of Brelo from my sister calling me from Florida to find out "how bad things were." I was having minor liver failure or something, so I wasn't at work getting news from elsewhere like the local radio stations or gossip texts from coworkers. I suddenly became very worried. I told my sibling that, "the folks across the street are remarkably quiet." at which point, we spoke of magnesium citrate. Later, I'd scan the web and read about the seventy something folks that got arrested stepping over the bonds while practicing their right to protest. Still the neighbors were remarkably quiet for a Saturday night-- dudes have a burnt-out car without a roof parked in their driveway, to tell you just how they usually like to relax.

On Sunday, I was still enjoying discovering how magnesium affects the body. Thanks to FacetuBe's algorithms (I forgot to hit "most recent" button the day before),  I read a portion of the infractions that had gotten the dozens of protestors arrested from various bar tenders and a couple owners from places that I like. Apparently, the protestors were at what I'd call "Playground Cleveland." Rechecking the official news sources, not much else to tell. The most exciting thing that happened all day, besides a fever, was that night when putting out my two American-made American flags for Memorial Day that night, a john and hooker were scared off of a shadowy, deserted porch next door. So I was in my bathrobe, I don't know where they get their wardrobe from, but, sheesh, talk about judgmental.

The next day while at work, The local NPR radio station was proclaiming how peaceful things had been. I heard about a rash of fires being called in along St Clair Avenue, a notorious northeastern street, within minutes after the verdict was read. "The Eastside burnt itself to the ground" said one person who had clairvoyance or something because he was not there. Later, my partner and I drove up to area to check things out during some down time that we were experiencing on the national holiday. Either the calls were a bunch of crank calls or perhaps somebody was presenting information that was not wholly based in fact.

The most exciting bit of vandalism that I could find is when, even later in the shift, we pulled up to a favorite park of mine (Down BY THE RIVER! ref. the Clash) to chill out. A couple of Cavalier fans according to their expensive jerseys wearing baseball caps, camouflage pants, in a big pickup with plates out of Medina county, Ohio (according to my partner) saw the vehicle and had to leave in a hurry. I had to chuckle as well as be pissed off as to why they had to. Here's the pictures below.

Best spot in all of Cleveland. Come find it.

This is the reason why deer hunters can't have nice things, like major sport franchises.

Officer Michael Brelo was the only law enforcement officer charged with a crime in a policing incident where a whole bunch of police cars, from more than one city, followed a couple of folks who were probably drunken driving and had some cocaine on their persons as well. Somewhere in East Cleveland, the folks were corralled where police cars were anywhere the drivers could escape. Shots were fired, less than two hundred, and towards the end of things, this was the one who charged the bunker, so to speak, jumping onto the hood of suspects' car and delivered a full clip through the windshield. Okay, I get it. Someone has to make sure his comrades at arms don't get hurt, you storm the bunker. The problem is, no one in the car was armed. Is he guilty of a crime? No. Should he be a police officer in Cleveland, Ohio. No. He storms bunkers, while anybody who lives around here knows the bomb of poverty was dropped here a long, long time ago, nobody that lives around here think that drunken drivers are the real armed enemy. If so, then there is an unspoken war between disparate populations that claim Cleveland as their own. Sadly the ones with the badges don't even have to live in the city limits.