Black Cleveland residents are getting a taste of "old school" news reporting from local newspapers and television stations that simply report black deaths as just another black man or woman dead. No pictures. No interviews with relatives. No trying to get an understanding of the victim and his or her connection to the community they lived in and the people who knew them. Just a stock photo of a cop car or yellow tape with a few brief details that someone was shot to death. The dehumanization of black people in the mainstream media has never ended.

Roger Ashley’s accused killer still not caught

EAST CLEVELAND, OH – Roger Ashley’s murder makes no sense.  He and his brother left together after a November 19th family visit and decided to stop at the GAS USA across from Shaw High School and the Sunoco.  His brother said “the best corned beef sandwiches are in the ‘hood.” 

Ashley, 38, lived in Euclid but was raised in East Cleveland and liked corned beef sandwiches.  The stop was routine.  The events that took his life were not.

The alleged shooter was already in the store when the two men arrived after 1:30 a.m.  Roger went to order a sandwich.  His brother walked towards the beverages.  The shooter approached from the opposite direction and told him to “get the fuck out of the way.”

The brother said, “I ain’t on that” and kept it moving.  He described the shooter as a “bum type dude” who looked like he had nothing to lose.  The brother said he wasn’t getting into any beefs with someone like him.

After getting his sandwich the brother said Roger asked what happened and he said “nothing.”  To him the encounter was brief, pointless and over.   The seconds that followed were a blur.  All he remembers seeing the shooter shooting his brother and turning to run.  He thought to grab him but knew the only life he could save “might” be his own.

The GAS USA across from Shaw High School is where a man said his brother was shot to death over nothing.

The brother told EJBNEWS he ran next door to Boyd’s funeral home and hid behind the fence.  He could see the shooter looking for him as he hid.

He left his hiding spot when East Cleveland police arrived.   The witness’ brother, a husband of 16 years and a working father of four, was dead.

Ashley’s relatives told EJBNEWS they were reached out to by detectives Kenneth Lundy and Ernest  Stanford.   Despite possessing surveillance video showing Phillips’ face, and a Facebook profile that matches, East Cleveland cops have not arrested him.

East Cleveland detective Kenneth Lundy was called a liar by U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver and changed his name after a controversy in Lucas County. Now he’s an East Cleveland detective investigating homicides without police credentials.

Lundy has been under investigation for performing a peace officer’s duties without  current and valid Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy (OPOTA) credentials.  He has twice been ordered by the state to stop wearing a weapon and performing a police officer’s duties.  U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver called him a liar. 

Lundy has been investigated twice by law enforcement agencies that employed him; and changed his name from Kenneth Disalvo to Kenneth Lundy after a Lucas County investigation.

Ashley’s relatives told EJBNEWS that neither Lundy nor Stanford have been able to catch Phillips.

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Eric Jonathan Brewer

Cleveland's most influential journalist and East Cleveland's most successful mayor is an East Saint Louis, Illinois native whose father led the city's petition drive in 1969 to elect the first black mayor in 1971. Eric is an old-school investigative reporter whose 40-year body of editorial work has been demonstrably effective. No local journalist is feared or respected more.

Trained in newspaper publishing by the legendary Call & Post Publisher William Otis Walker in 1978 when it was the nation's 5th largest Black-owned publication, Eric has published and edited 13 local, regional and statewide publications across Ohio. Adding to his publishing and reporting resume is Eric's career in government. Eric served as the city's highest paid part-time Special Assistant to ex-Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White. He served as Chief of Staff to ex-East Cleveland Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor; and Chief of Communications to the late George James in his capacity as the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority's first Black executive director. Eric was appointed to serve as a member of the state's Financial Planning & Supervision Commission to guide the East Cleveland school district out of fiscal emergency and $20 million deficit. Former U.S. HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson told Eric in his D.C. office he was the only mayor in the nation simultaneously-managing a municipal block grant program. Eric wrote the city's $2.2 million Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant application. A HUD Inspector General audit of his management of the block grant program resulted in "zero" audit findings.

As a newspaper publisher, Eric has used his insider's detailed knowledge of government and his publications to lead the FBI and state prosecutors to investigations that resulted in criminal prosecutions of well-known elected officials in Ohio; and have helped realign Cleveland's political landscape with the defeat of candidates and issues he's exposed. Eric's stories led to the indictments of the late Governor George Voinovich's brother, Paul Voinovich of the V Group, and four associates. He asked the FBI to investigate the mayor he'd served as chief of staff for public corruption; and testified in three federal trials for the prosecution. He forced former Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Elizabeth Balraj to admit her investigations of police killings were fraudulent; and to issue notices to local police that her investigators would control police killing investigations. Eric's current work has resulted in Cuyahoga County Judge John Russo accepting the criminal complaint he guided an activist to file against 24 civil rights-violating police officers in the city he once led for operating without valid peace officer credentials. USA Today reporters picked up on Eric's police credentials reporting from his social media page and made it national.

Eric is the author of of his first book, "Fight Police License Plate Spying," which examines the FBI and local police misuse of the National Crime Information Center criminal records history database. An accomplished trumpet player and singer whose friendship with Duke Fakir of the Four Tops resulted in his singing the show's closing song, "Can't Help Myself": Curtis Sliwa of New York's Guardian Angels counts Eric among his founding chapter leaders from the early 1980's role as an Ohio organizer of over 300 volunteer crime fighters in Cleveland, Columbus and Youngstown, Ohio. For his work as a young man Eric was recognized by Cleveland's Urban League as it's 1983 Young Man of the Year.

Known in Cleveland for his encyclopedic knowledge of government and history, and intimately-connected with the region's players, every local major media outlet in Cleveland has picked up on one of Eric's stories since 1979. There is no mainstream newspaper, television or radio outlet in Cleveland that does not include an interview with Eric Jonathan Brewer in its archives over the past 40 years.

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