This is the FCB Podcast Network. Great job boot change at top DA. We don't listen to y'all. We don't listen to y'all. This the hotel. Make them scream out down like us sound because the rockets in the crowd like a tune in the charge for the outdo tune in the Charge for the Outlaw. Welcome to a special edition of The Outlaws. This is Starveyoda Kampen Tomorrow. Don't forget too Like us on Facebook at facebook dot com, slash the Outlaws Radio, follow us on Twitter or x at the Outlaws or Radio and Instagram at the Outlaws Radio. Uh. We have a special interview today with Cleveland City Councilman Richard Starr. He is addressing something that has been in the news he's spoken out about publicly, and that is the hiring of Philip McHugh in the city's safety department as a safety advisor I believe is his official title. He is someone who is accused of violating an elderly black couple's civil rights when he was a police detective in Washington, d C. And there's been a fight between members of council and the mayor. The mayor hired Mayor Justin Bibb hired this guy and continues to double down on keeping him in that position, and the members of council, including Councilman Star, are very unhappy and upset about that and are addressing it in the ways that are available to them. So we're going to get into the interview with Councilman Richard Starr right now. All right, we have a very special guest on the show today. He is Cleveland City Counselman Richard Star. Welcome to the program. How you doing? Sorry, Hey, are you doing? Brother? Pretty good? I'm having a great day. Just time, all right, all right, So, man, there's there's been a lot of controversy around a particular hire that the mayor of Cleveland has made. And before we get kind of to your your response and your feelings about it, let's start from the beginning. Who is who is Philip McK what position has he been hired for, and what allegedly did he do in Washington, d C. In his previous job. Thank you, Thank you for a first for this interview in his time to just have a discussion. I really take the context that sometimes people in our community are not receiving the correct information on a lot of things or are they just not aware of what is going on when it comes to government, So the mayor administration has the right and right now based on the way charter and policy is written, to hire whoever they want. Clela City Council do not hire fire or do any deployment or anything like that, or enforce anything. We are the legilative body. But within that the context that break it down to local government. Standpoint for someone to understand Clelic City Council is the border government, I mean the Border directors. As the Border directors, we have oversight. And with that being said, is whether we have the policy in place or not. We do control how things are done. Positions are created, we have to approve those positions. Money is needed, we have to approve those things. Ninety five percent of the things that the mayor wants to do has to come to the legilative body and that's council. So the whole context of a Philip mceew, he was a guy who once applied. Before he applied for a job, he first was a roommate college roommate of mayor bid So that means they have some type of formal relationship and I believe Mayor bed wanted to bring him on to work here in some type of capacity around safety. From the time he was hired in December up until now, he had three different titles, so he's had up and down on all these different positions. So one day at a safety committee meeting, I was looking around noticing a guy like yod. I think this is the second safety committee meet and I've noticed this individual. So I got up and proceeded to ask some of my colleagues on the Safety committee to figure out, like who is So when I finally got his name, one counsel order said Philip one Saint McHugh, and then they were trying to connect. Once I got everything, I sat down at my surface during committee and I did a Google search. And when I did a Google search, I found a video at the top of the search, a video of a senior elder couple around in their seventies and they were telling a story about how their civil rights were violated by Detective Philip McHugh and how he led an initiative to to harass the this couple. And when you look at the case, it all stems from a fenderbender accident and you look at this couple. They were in their beings and they were just having having a nice time out and through that fenderbender altercation, Miss Sharad was in her car and she was flagging a lady off like, well soit you ain'tna basically give me your information or doing what you need to do, go ahead and just get out of my face. One of those get keep keep moving type of thing. And as you know, this lady then decided to call the police and make a false allegation that said miss Charad was waving a gun at her and the detective that was as signs of the case was Philim mceu. Now someone calls a detective and said, as somebody was possibly doing some type of activity with a gun with them, and the detective automatically just jumped and believed whatever this lady was saying. I believe her name was Sarah, I forgot what her actual name is. But the lady said this made these false allegations, and Philip mcee as a detective, took it and ran with it. And the things that he did within that case, he shows his lack of integrity, lack of respect, and not even just the truth He immediately got in contact with Michel Rod and let her know that some allegation has been brought up and somebody was saying that she had a gun, and she said, no, that's a lie. She said, out on our own a gun, never had a gun. That is not me. Philip mcee then then decides to run on mische Rod and her husband through the federal database, state database to see if they ever purchased a gun. And what you found out was they've never owned a gun. Mister or Misscharad never own a gun. They're not gun carriers. That's not them. Next he puts in a request to say that they were involved in a possible colonials assort with a weapon, and then had every from the state to the local patrol looking for a Mischarid a car. Now the context of understanding this is it took the state and the federal government six weeks to pull over Misscharad. Module elderly couple. I mean most elderly couples are not out in their cars driving every day often as most as other individuals there. You know, you may be retired, you probably go to the store, go to a couple places, but not out owning your car. So it took the police six times, I mean six weeks for law enforcement to pull them over. But when law enforcement pulled her over, Deschrode family over, Philip mcewe gets the call and receives the call that they found a car. And now he gets that call for him to be able to I'm to the scene and search the car. There were the context of what was happening. They then put on an elderly couple in handcuffs, sitting them to the sidewalk, and for an hour search the car. So they think of the mental tactics that is going on. You gotta ground, you got, you got an elder couple like I don't I have a gun. There's not a gun. I've told you this before. Why are y'all pulling me over? Why are you still searching my car? Why am I sitting here? Why are we in handcuffs? Why do are we being detained for something that is completely false? For phili m you don't want to hear that he believed in his heart because someone called them and said this allegation that had gotta be true. Don't find a gun. Next thing, you know, Phil mceu tries to get them to then come downtown and to the to the police Court district to make to make a conversation and a statement. Miss mceute, I mean miss mister Rod. She didn't believe them, she didn't trust him, and she's like, I'm not going anywhere. Next thing, you know, after the car is topped, Philip mce's then goes and submit for a house search warrant. Now you knock at an elderly couple house with the police, and if anybody understands, when the police comes to your house and do a search warrant, they don't pick up things and put them back in place. They tear up stuff, They slam TVs, knock things over, pull things out your drawers, and just leave your house like they were looking for something. And guess what, And as they did that search warrant, yet again you don't find no going that that right there, you said you stopped them. You get a call saying that they possibly have a gun and would pointing a gun at somebody. Don't find no truth to that. Then run the name through database, find out they don't own a gun, never had. This couple never own a gun. Then you do a flag the car to be stopped because there was might have been evolved in some type of gun case. Still don't find a gun. Then you do a search of their home, still don't find a gun, and then you're do an arrest warrant out for missch Rod. Now look at the context of this. Mister Sharrod is a legally blind man. He can't even do much to help his wife in each one of these cases. In the car situation when the first initially happened, then when they get pulled over, then they're in their house doing the search work. Now you're gonna Now you're gonna come and arrest my wife and say she needs to turn herself in so so so so mister Rod, with her pastor at fixing the warning, goes to turn herself in prison and in her Sunday's best clothes. So philim me cue. You still don't got no evidence against this women, nothing that pointed, nothing that nothing shows anything in her background for you to be doing this. Then when you get to a grand jury, grand jury told them like, no, you you're completely wrong. So now you're trying to reverse it and not not saying you wasn't leading it. So Philip mcew violated somebody's civil rights. A DC lawsuit was filed against the police force as well, I'm mque in which they pay a six figure settlement to the Sharra family. Now this is not a family that you think like, oh, this is a cash grab. You know, they was driving the bands. They were driving the bands, and you look at the house. They they've done well for themselves. And for them to be living in DC, to be deinged and treated with their violation of their civil rights being taken away from them and being treated like that for eight months by a detective shows that the intechnertary that McK ass is not the good integrity that is needed for the city of Cleveland. So as that happened, Phila mce then becomes put in a situation where he wanted to come to Cleveland. He has a relationship with Mayor Justin Bibb, stemming from his days as a college roommate and as a college roommate to Mayor bib The relationship keeping tact. My college roommate from bought and Wallace, Dan Turner. I talked to him, I talked to him Mary Day, I talked to him often. It's well, but your roommate then applies for a position in July for him to work in public Safty didn't receive that position as a regular applicant, he didn't receive it. So next step he decides to have communication obviously with the mayor and Chief Radford Davey, as well as Director Cole of Human Resources, and he starts to write his own job sture and create a job a position that wasn't funded in the budget, and then have the Public Safety go out and do a post in and do an interview, and then he gets selected for the job. He didn't go through the same protocols as everyone else. He didn't have a thorough background check. He wasn't vetted like they do any other police. Because if he was vetted the same way as everyone else the civil rights case, what it came up his background of other times where he was in trouble for pursuing a car without having authority, a high speed chase without authority. So he's showing that he has some rough rider, like he just a night rider, similar to some things that you would not want to see in Cleveland. After we've done with Silver, after we have dealt with civil rights violations, after we have dealt with police brutality in our city, We've dealt with violence involving police and pedestrians and citizens in the city of Cleveland. To now having somebody who has those type of tactics in their background and have shown that this is who they are, to now having a job created that he created himself. That is a senior level position and it's not being vetted just as as any other senior level position would or as any other position was because of the relationship he has with the mayor. Is nothing but nepotism. It is disrespectful to all of the residents in Cleveland, especially especially the city workers that are in law enforcement. Imagine how that go if you to try to work their way up all your life and then you don't even get afforded the opportunity for a position, and you may have the experience, but you ain't got that in much experience. He has done nothing. His background has shown that he's going to be the one to do all type of anything. And he don't believe in facts. He just pushed whatever narrative that he believes. And on top of that, when everything came about and Director Howard, who was to the director of safety, He asked m because he was told that he didn't have to go all through all this extra checking and vetting for him. The guyard he actually didn't have anything in his background, and he said no, So you lied to you lied to the director, and you've created a position that was not that was picked for you. And then trying to say, well, I didn't think I was gonna get it, Well, why did you create a job if you don't think you don't get it? It's like, where do they do this at? Where is this privilege now? To be honest about justice? And I never seen nobody that looked like me get this type of opportunity just because just because who I know that is That is not cool, That's not right. MCE should not be in our city working in no type of leadership capacity. He has not shown any type of grace. And he's around line and pastors and saying that line of pastors line to editor borderclean dot com line to other council members, stating that the prosecutor Madeheim continue to pursue this case. He told him that it wasn't it wasn't, it wasn't true, and things could have been more worse if he if he was, wasn't telling them to stop? Everyone know, when you look at the deposition, it showed everything was laid. I feel a mceue. It was written, I feel a mceue. So what you said then and now what you're saying now, it's contradiction. The conclusion of our interview with the council and Richard Starr when we come back here on the Outlaws, Welcome back. Make sure that you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcast. And if you listen to this show on Apple, please make sure you leave us a five star review and a comment. It's very important for the algorithm and for those of you that have already done so, thank you, oh so very much. Let's get to the conclusion of our interview with Cleveland City Councilman Richard Starr. There was a story in Cleveland dot com that said he essentially lied to Cleveland dot com with with with his story and we'll get to we'll get to that part in a second. But so you discover this information, we're talking with Cleveland, UH City Councilman Richard Starr. You talk, you find this information once you discover this information about Philip McHugh as not only as a councilman, but also as a black man in the city. How did you feel about that when you discovered that this guy with this history and this background now has this position in this city. I completely felt speechless, and I said and I said, actually, wow, And that's where I might where do they do this at? Where is this allowed? To name any other entity where this can actually occur at and it'll be okay. I felt that if it was me, I would never get this type of chance or opportunity. Never if somebody looked like me, they would never get to that opportunity. And it shows that it's who you know. And also it shows you it looked like it's a black and white thing. So you got to look at race. I mean, they fired our safety director. He resigned based on some policy rules. Fired our assistant safety director, jakimad who is a single parent who got dragged through the mud because she had a car accident and had her children in a city vehicles employees still to this day utilizing city vehicles with their children in the car, still today. So she gets fired for an accident. Our our third, our second assistant director of safety, George Culture, a great stand up African American man. He decides to resign. So our safety director, our safety director was black. Our assistant director team with African American black woman, Georgia Culture, our an additional assistant director black. He desires to resign, and then he and our at the time are are chief of police. Chief Drumming at the time was black. So we had one sentim lifetime. Now we have some people that looked like myself, that looked like on the vast majority of Cleveland, and some some great leadership positions to do some great things. They all get fired or are forced to resign or just resign because of the nepotism and the drama that is going on. The administration wanted to carry hour to hire someone and try someone to be as replacement. This is not this is not right. So the thing that has kind of puzzled me the most, and I would love to get your thoughts on on if you have any insight on why they're doing this is once this all came out, I would have expected in any other situation that they would have let this guy go and move on. But the administration is doubling down on that, and I can't. I can't figure out why it doesn't make sense city wise, it doesn't make sense politically, it doesn't make sense in any way that you want to look at it. I don't understand. And why they seem determined to keep this guy. What are your thoughts? The reason why I think that they're determined to double they're doubling down and determined to do this is because other relationship that this individual has with the mayor. Maybe this guy Philip mcewe is a close friend and they go back. Maybe Mayor Bibb is looking to say this my watch guy, my watch dog. Now I don't care what his background is. And for them to say they knew about they've came out and said they knew about this case and knew what happened, and say he's the best qualified candidate. That's when you know that their integrity and their values and their character is on display. And that's the mayor He's like, Hey, this is my friend and I want him here next to me, and I take it, and I don't mind dealing with any other consequences because I feel like this is my friend and that is not how you get things done. And the ones who are around him, advising him and his team are letting them look like a clown out there. And that's the issue I have, is the fact that this should not be happening. It's not about a win or a loss. It's about the optics. It's about the residents. It's about the citizens in the city of Cleveland having someone in a position that's going to try to discipline and advise and do different things when it comes to safety. When they have shown that they don't even know what they're doing, when they know them that they will violate somebody rights. That ain't what we're doing. And that was frustrates me the most. And for me to look up and see that Mayor BB and Mayor be apposed is a millennial and a black leader. And he talked about transparency, he talks so bad about previous administrations, and talked about campaigning, about doing things right, campaign about his ground. So you're telling me, phili mceute, with his background, if your grandma will somebody called something on his grandma. He liked his grandma up and did the same thing. So how you gonna say, my grandma is my backbone? But then hire somebody that possibly would have it. I liked your grandma up if somebody made a call like this. We was affigating. Wow, we've done with Cleveland City Councilman Richard Starr, and have you heard from your residence or residents in your war talking about this man. Residents been calling all three of my cell phones. Residents from War five, residents from throughout the city, employees within the city staff, everywhere I go. Counselman, we need you, counselman. This is not right. Counselman. Thank you for speaking up because this this type of thing shouldn't happen. Counselman. I worked for the city and I got fired for me asking just some basic questions on while we're doing things, and I was trying to challenge the status quote a little bit, and I was fired without no background or without no documentation. I was to just let go everyone. Everyone in the city that I've that I've known or have communication with, or any type of form of relationship, whether they were support me or don't support me, have spoken to me. I've had a ray of different individuals reached out and said this is completely wrong and the mayor is going to have to deal with this later. And they mean it, and a lot of residents are talking about when the election time come on, they will not forget this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been hearing the same man. This is This has really kind of penetrated the conscious list of people in the city more than anything else has. Now. I know you mentioned earlier about council's role and how you can't as the rules stand right now, there really isn't much that you all can do. But I know that there is a couple of you have been proposing sort of changing that, So let's talk a little bit about that. From my understanding, it seems like maybe it would become something similar to how the Senate does in Congress, where the President appoints someone, but the Senate has to confirm them. Is that something? Is that the process similar to the process that you're trying to put in place, YEP, similar to that process as well as a similar process for a Cuyoga County Council. They have to approve certain type of senior level positions that the county executive wants to hire. County executive can go through the interview and the selection and that setting process, but then ultimately has to be approved through the County Council with different orderses to allow them to be able to get into that position. So that's something I'm looking into. But also even currently, before we get into that, it's a budget. The budget that we have to pay people has to be approved by cleand City Council. So if it's a position that's funded or it is a position that we want to eliminate in council, we have the authority to do that, right right. So so I'm assuming that there's there's going to be some movement on one of those two things, if not both, uh, sometime in the future. Here. So if you and I know, I'm sure you've probably had conversations with the mayor. I know you said a lot of this stuff publicly. If you were able to, you know, look one on one eye to eye with the mayor about this situation, what would you what would you say to the mayor about this I would say to the mayor. You you you say you are a black, young millennial. You say you from Mount Pleasant, you say you from the urban neighborhood, you say you from Cleveland. You say you love Cleveland. Well, if you love Cleveland, you will let Philip mceu go if you really for this community, if you really want to be a transparent on mayor, you want to be the mayor that helped modernize the city, you you wouldn't be going back hiring people with this Jim Crow tactic racism background, and those individuals will not be around your camp Also to the mayor, stop, you need to get some real people around you, because if you ask someone real that would really have your ear, that really care about you, mayor be it, they wouldn't allow you to make this incompetent decision. They will not allow you to be out here being made a fool because you just think about a quote unquote friendship as opposed to thinking about your career, thinking about the people. But at the end of the day, I would let them know, like, don't believe that voter turnout is low on the East Side or in urban neighborhoods, as if voter turnout cannot change and flip in one election due to things that happen. I will also let the mayor know is you walk in and tiptoe in similar to the same mistakes, the same issues that Mayor Jane Campbell has, and you're going to be a one term mayor if you keep this up and that's the direction you're heading in. All right, counsel Start. Let everybody know if they want to get in contact with your office, follow you on social media, keep up with with this and everything else you got going on them. Know how to do that. Yep, Hey everyone, My office number is two one six sixty six four two three zero nine. My email is our STA r R at Cleveland City Council. If you want to follow anything going on social media wise, my social media account for Instagram is council Member Underscore Richard Starr and then also the same for on Facebook as well as Twitter. On with the R with a one. All right, man, thank you so much for coming on the show and spending time with us. We appreciate you, man, Thank you anytime. I appreciate you. Have a great afternoon. One more time, thank you to Counseling Start for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. We are out of here. We'll see you next time. Peace. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where Real Talk Lives. Visit us online at Fcbpodcasts dot com.
