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Demonstrators in Cleveland call on judges to grant early release to inmates

Inmates banged on their windows as more than two dozen people called on judges to clear the prisons of inmates who have already served portions of their sentences

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Protesters gathered at the steps of the Justice Center to rally for the inhumane treatment of people incarcerated because of the spread of COVID-19.

Photo/John Kuntz of Cleveland.com via TNS

By Cory Shaffer
Advance Ohio Media

CLEVELAND — Dozens of demonstrators on Friday gathered outside the Cuyahoga County Justice Center and called on the county’s 34 Common Pleas Court judges to grant the early release of thousands of inmates housed in state prisons that have been devastated by outbreaks of the novel coronavirus.

Cuyahoga County Jail inmates banged on their cell windows as more than two dozen people pulled surgical face masks under their chin, grabbed a freshly wiped microphone and called on the judges to use what’s called judicial release to clear the prisons of inmates who have already served portions of their sentences.

The speakers said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s efforts that have identified less than one percent of the nearly 50,000 inmates housed at prisons across the country as candidates for early release, as outbreaks in the state’s crowded prison facilities have left 73 inmates and two staffers dead.

“Since Gov. [Mike] DeWine is not going to act, we are calling on every judge in Cuyahoga County,” Kevin Ballou, an organizer with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative and the group Stop the Inhumanity at the Cuyahoga County Jail, said. “We appoint you. Start acting. Start letting our people come home.”

The protest comes ahead of a scheduled demonstration on Saturday over Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s killing of George Floyd last week. The killing of Floyd, a black man who was accused of trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill at a store, by Chauvin, a white officer with a history of complaints, was captured on video. The video and his death sparked day of volatile demonstrations met with escalating police response. Authorities arrested Chauvin on Thursday and charged him with third degree murder.

Floyd’s name was peppered throughout the hour-long demonstration Friday as another example of how the institutions often fail people of color.

The focus on activists’ demand was the use of judicial release, where inmates serving time in prison formally ask the judge who imposed their sentence to allow them to be released and often placed on probation for the remainder of what would have been their sentence.

But Ballou, a 26-year-old student at Cleveland State University who served five years in prison for an armed robbery he committed when he was 18, said on Friday that the COVID-19 epidemic highlighted issues within the criminal justice system that groups like Stop the Inhumanity at the Cuyahoga County Jail have long advocated against.

“If we had proper bail reform than we wouldn’t have overcrowding,” he said. “If prisons weren’t so overcrowded, than it wouldn’t have spread at such a rapid rate.”

Ballou, three others who have spent time either in the Cuyahoga County Jail or in prison and a handful of community activists spoke as dozens more demonstrators circled the block honking the horns of cars and SUVs decked out with messages like “Free Them All” and “Running out of time, DeWine.”

David Okpara, 32, was released from prison in March after serving seven years in prison on drug trafficking and weapons charges. He said he now works as a truck driver and serves as a minister for the Salvation Army, and wants the inmates currently imprisoned to have the same shot to turn around their lives as he got, and not have COVID-19 turn their sentence into a death sentence.

“This is not just an inmate thing. This is a human rights thing,” Okpara said. “We’re allowing this to happen.”

Other former inmates, including Tyrone Harrison and Jacqueline Kovach, echoed Okpara’s comments.

Harrison, who served 8 1/2 years of a 12-year sentence on armed robbery charges before he was released from prison in 2016, said since his release he has volunteered for the homeless and taken service trip to Africa.

“You can’t deem the people inside [jails and prisons] less than human because they made a mistake,” he said. “People change every day, and those men in there are changing the way I did.”

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©2020 Advance Ohio Media, Cleveland

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