Memorial Portrait Poster of Brandon McCloud, killed by Cleveland police on September 1, 2005
“Brandon McCloud was a target. He had actually stolen from a pizza guy. You know, he set it up where he went to the house and he robbed the pizza guy. And the guy called the police, which he regrets that he ever did. They had messed with Brandon for a while. You know, one day they picked him up and took him downtown or must have taken him to the youth center. His grandmother was raisin’ him, didn’t know where he was.
Now what happened the night of this incident with the police and pizza guy, that night, or in the early morning, his Grandmother was getting ready to go to work and they told her, “Stay in your car.” They went to the front door. Two cops went to the front door and knocked and knocked and his uncle came out in his underwear. You know how it is, they degraded him and made him stay outside, said, “Stay out. We’re going inside to get your nephew”. They go upstairs to his room and they claim that he was coming out with a little bread knife. They shot him dead.
I went the next day and the grandmother said, “Bill, go upstairs.” That blood was within a foot, meaning he never got out of bed. He was only 16 and getting ready to go to school. These cops knew Brandon, they knew where his room was. The radio dispatch told the cops “shoot to kill” and the reply was “no problem”. There was a lot of outrage over this case, lots of demonstrations at the fourth district. At one of the October 22nd demonstrations one of the two cops who killed him was smiling and laughing because his grandmother was protesting. These were detectives I think, maybe one detective and one cop. And right after it happened the grandmother said, “Bill, I’m always going to be a poor Black lady. I’m not interested in the money. I want those cops to be put away“. Of course that never happened. The point is she wasn’t interested in any kind of money or a settlement. I don’t know though, they might’ve got some, but that wasn’t her thing. 16 years old, Brandon McCloud. The police had gotten a warrant and it didn’t look people disputed whether it was really official. They got it in the middle of the night from Timothy McGinty, prosecutor.”–Bill Swain