CLEVELAND – Five white Cleveland police supervisors charged with failing to stop a chase that ended with two black suspects being killed in a 137-shot barrage of police gunfire say a prosecutor in a predominantly black suburb lacks authority to file identical charges against them.
An attorney for the supervisors filed an appeal Wednesday to stop the case in East Cleveland. It argues the county court where misdemeanor charges of dereliction of duty were filed last year has primary jurisdiction. The supervisors' trial in county court had been scheduled to begin July 27.
The supervisors were charged in East Cleveland last week. The lone East Cleveland judge is black, and a jury would be selected from a population that's 93 percent black. The officers' first court appearance in the suburb is Friday.
The hottest stories ripped from the headlines, from crime to courts, legal and scandal.
