Will The Youngstown-Warren Black Caucus endorse a candidate for judge with a well-known racial prejudice?
The saddest thing about civil rights in America is seeing those who the black community trusts to stick up for their rights fail. In Ohio, local chapters of the NAACP and other organizations representing people of color have frequently endorsed political candidates who supported the violation of the very people those organizations represent. Often, this was in exchange for undisclosed favors.
In some cases, it was protection from police for the relatives of the leaders of the NAACP. In one case, a local official who was black had a relative who was a known drug addict, and there was a rumor that her endorsements for status quo candidates for city government guaranteed that her relative wouldn’t be arrested.
If the Youngstown-Warren Black Caucus (YWBC) endorses Chris Becker for judge of common pleas in Trumbull County, the first question that should be asked is: What did they get in return for endorsing a prosecutor who has done nothing but support the corrupt, brutal, and racist regime their congregations have suffered under for +30 years?
Jaladah Aslam is the president of the YWBC. When asked in mid-May who the YWBC would endorse, Ms. Aslam responded, “The Youngstown Warren Black Caucus has not endorsed any candidate in that race thus far. Our members decided not to endorse in the Democratic Primary and tabled the decision until after they meet with Atty. Kovoor. Once that interview takes place, our screening committee will make a recommendation to the full body and they will make a final decision on endorsement in that race. That probably will not happen until mid-summer.”
Pastor Kenneth Simon is the chair of the candidate selection committee, so if Becker is selected, people should direct their inquiries to those two. There is no mystery about Becker’s tarnished record and his virulent contempt for equal rights.
Black people in Trumbull County have experienced strip searches after routine traffic stops. They have been beaten half to death or killed without any reasonable justification or probable cause, only to be charged for resisting arrest and obstructing official business, fake charges which the prosecutor’s office has been happy to bring, always taking the word of the Warren Police without question, even when there was no evidence. Even when there was a video exonerating the accused.
During his decades in office, Assistant Prosecutor Chris Becker has been nothing if not vocal and consistent in his support of those who deprived black people in Warren of all their rights.
So, if the YWBC endorses Chris Becker for judge, you must ask them, Why are you perpetuating the unjust treatment of black people in Trumbull County? Why have you betrayed the people whose tithes give you a voice? How can you claim to be about civil rights when you endorse an official who has shown only hostility to due process and the rule of law?
So many black men and women have died in questionable circumstances in Trumbull County. The list is long. James Hill Goves, Matthew Perhacs, Daisey Gilmore, Orin Waddell, James Osmon, Harold Freeman, David Charles Daniels, and John Edmondson. Few people will likely remember these victims or their stories, and they cannot be found on the internet, but it’s a familiar narrative. The cop says, “I feared for my life,” and a prosecutor says, “Say no more” with a wink and a nod. That is all the WPD has needed to say throughout the last century, and Chris Becker has never once questioned that narrative during all his years in office, least of all with Matthew Burroughs, whose murderers he carefully shielded from accountability.
For the first decade of this century, no WPD officer was ever punished for excessive force, yet the Justice Department had to send investigators, attorneys, and spokespeople more than once due to excessive force. After Chief Mando died, the Justice Department had to watch over the WPD for five years as part of a court-ordered reform program called a “consent decree” when a government agency has engaged in a “pattern or practice” of civil rights violations.
Only the worst of the worst police departments in the history of the nation have been subject to a consent decree, yet nobody ever heard a peep from any county prosecutor, acknowledging that any reforms were necessary or implemented. It has been only self-congratulation from the prosecutor’s office on a job well done.
Chris Becker’s re-election slogan is “Protect Trumbull County.” Wait, what? Chris Becker has consistently protected certain people, but as everyone knows only too well, it would be absurd to say that all residents of Trumbull County have equal protection before the law.
The WPD was widely regarded as a “lawless group” and “the town’s most dangerous gang.” Did anything change? Or did the violations go under the surface? We may never have proof, but in the black community, there is doubt whether the WPD actually changed at all.
I wrote a book, entitled “Blue Mafia: Police brutality and consent decrees in Ohio,” about the battle to reform the WPD.
With former assistant prosecutor Tracie Timko-Sabua as the main official interacting with the Justice Department, it’s a safe bet that the Justice Department heard nothing but lies and obfuscations.
Trumbull County officials often help their relatives get jobs in government, and Timko-Sabua has family in law enforcement.
With that conflict of interest, she was always manifestly unfit for any position dealing with the Justice Department, and so it was no surprise when aretired WPD officer recently told me that the Justice Department needs to come back.
Unfortunately, this is Trumbull County we’re talking about. It’s utterly corrupt and there is no independent media to challenge the powerful. Most officials have spent decades getting more and more entrenched in their positions, doling out favors and protecting their friends and families from all consequences of their actions.
That’s the story of the Democratic Party in Trumbull County. It’s a group that demonstrates few if any of the guiding values professed by the party in other parts of the country, such as the right to a fair trial or due process and equal protection under the law.
It is a decaying oligarchy kept in power by corrupt elites and their know-nothing media (observe their responses to my post about the cover-up of an arrest for soliticiting prostitution to save Timko-Sabau’s candidacy), and the old vestiges need to be completely removed for a new beginning.
If you care about your rights, make sure Chris Becker does not become a judge. If the YWBC endorses him, they’re telling you exactly who they serve.
