The Observation Deck

We noticed the police presence while at Peppers. The owner mentioned that he sees Lakewood Police heading to Cleveland every now and then. He said that Lakewood Police act as backup for much of Cleveland's West side.

The City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County has a development policy that:

Subsidizes downtown

Subsidizes sprawl

Starves the middle

More people live within a 10 minute walk of Clifton and 117th street than live in all of downtown Cleveland and that area can't get 10 cents in development dollars. And yet there are plans afoot to spend $60 million on Public Square and Mall C. The City of Cleveland is starving its neighborhoods to subsidize politically connected downtown developers. How is that working out?

Sounds like an insane policy to me.

Cuyahoga County's support of that policy also does great damage to cities that border Cleveland.

Why doesn't our Mayor and Council challenge those policies? What are they afraid of?

While it "appears" that Mayor and Public Safety Director Mike Summers, is refusing to issue any statement about this incident, Jim O'Bryan has issued a spot-on statement.

Read Jim's thread entitled, "The Bar And Club Business In Lakewood" at http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12599.

David Lay wrote:

Matthew John Markling wrote:Lakewood Hospital, was anyone treated there and, if not, why not?

Probably because they had more serious injuries than Lakewood Hospital was equipped for. Metro & Fairview are Level I & II Trauma Centers, respectively.

Lakewood Hospital is no longer a hospital. It won't be closed all at once for political reasons but it will be closed. The Cleveland Clinic will kill it slowly.

The Plain Dealer is still featuring this story on its front page. That's the first time I've seen that. Normally the stories slowly move down the line and disappear in a day or two.

The Plain Dealer treats violence at Cleveland Public Square differently. They didn't report this story at all until people began asking why foreign news papers were printing it:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... y-out.html

Following the lead of Jim O'Bryan, Mayor and Public Safety Director Mike Summers tweets:

Michael P. Summers@LakewoodMayor

No Lakewood residents involved in Saturday's fight near W117th. Arrested over 20 from out of area or out of state; charges to be filed today
Retweeted by City of Lakewood

And City Hall posts:

In total, 21 people — all non-Lakewood-residents — were arrested after the melee near W. 117th Street on Saturday night. Prosecutors are filing charges today.

Read Jim's thread entitled, "The Bar And Club Business In Lakewood" at http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12599.

While the City of Cleveland is starving its neighborhoods:

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index ... er_default

Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland have spent $1 billion to subsidize development along Euclid Avenue and they still need subsidies to fill all those empty store fronts?

Meanwhile, Lakewood is forced to police Cleveland's near West side.

How insane is that?

When will our Mayor and Council speak out against policies that:

Subsidizes downtown

Subsidizes sprawl

Starves the middle

For even more news coverage, please read Jim O’Bryan’s article entitled, “Hardcore Crews Battle In Lakewood - 23 Arrested” at http://lakewoodobserver.com/read/2014/04/21/hardcore-crews-battle-in-lakewood-23-arrested.

These people have been charged, are are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
















































.

So now they get to go up before our own "Hanging Judge." Any bets on what the sentence will be? My guess will be $500 fines, 30 days in jail reduced to time served and 1 years probation.

From the “Arrests/Video, Photos & 911 Calls – Updated” thread at http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12601:

Bill Burnett wrote:Thank you Jim for giving this the coverage that no other news source was able to supply.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12601

Michael Deneen wrote:Agree with Bill....LO is generally not a "breaking news" source, but it definitely kicked ass on this story!

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12601

Sandra Donnelly wrote:Jim, I really appreciate your coverage of this and other stories of late. My "senior citizen" parents were concerned about this incident, and I was able to give them the facts because of your reporting. Many thanks, and well done!!

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12601

Jon Eckerle wrote:This is a great example of how a single event effects an entire community. The cops, the businesses, the people directly involved, but also the reputation of the community, the grandma bathed in fear down the street and citizens perception of their own community are all impacted by these events. In other words the " Community", is effected.

Without indepth reporting this easily, would of become, "a Lakewood riot." Through the Observer's reporting it became " scary white dudes from other cities came to Lakewood to fight," story. Once again the Observer has proven that it is an essential branch of what we call Lakewood.

Thank You

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12601

Jim,

I agree with all of the above.

Great reporting!

It’s so great that the local media is stealing your coverage down to the headlines.

Keep up the great work.

Matt

Well....
there were massive outdoor brawls in 70 percent of John Wayne movies.
and 100 Percent of Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill movies!
granted, there were fewer machetes and neck tattoos back then.
the important thing is no one got hurt.

The Infamous DJ Parker talks about many things including, his show, how wrong the media is, that
he had NOTHING to do with Fire Fest, and everyone got everything wrong, except the LO. It was
and interesting evening, with dinner at India Garden, then coffee for me and herbal tea for TIDJP.

I found it entertaining, interesting, informative, and feeling for a good guy that got caught up in a
media feeding frenzy, that was never true.

.

Got a question. It has not been reported by any news media(JO'B HINT HINT) as to who the injured in this melee were. I'm hoping that the injured were limited to the participants. In other words, were any uninvolved locals hurt, Jim?.