2010: Caleb Maupin’s Footage Cleared Two Cleveland Teenagers

Caleb Maupin video recorded police attacking students who walked out of Collinwood High School to protest teacher layoffs in 2010. His video resulted in their acquittal in court.

“The police beat up my girls, they threw them in jail, and now they’re putting them through these charges… I can’t see how this goes on and nobody says anything. Caleb Maupin saw something that was unjust, and he stood up. I don’t see a lot of other people doing that here.” Those are the words of Tina Bronaugh, mother of Destiny and DeAsia Bronaugh, quoted in an article published by Cleveland Scene on July 28th, 2010.

Tina Bronaugh’s two daughters had been brutally beaten up and arrested in front of Collinwood High School a few months earlier. Scene reports how Caleb “captured video of Cleveland police arresting two teenage girls, Destini and DeAsia Bronaugh, ages 19 and 17. The video shows four officers slamming the girls against a cruiser and dropping them face-down on the pavement. The next day, a protest was held outside the school calling for the Bronaugh sisters’ release.”

A follow-up article on October 8th was entitled “DeAsia Bronaugh Wins in Juvenile Court.” The article provided background on the case: “The girls were subject to a rough arrest, and the entire incident was caught on tape by Scene’s favorite Marx-toting community organizers… The clip, below, was shown on media outlets across the city, stirring up talk of police brutality. After some uncertainty, county prosecutors went ahead and charged the two with felonies, and the younger girl — 17-year-old DeAsia — went on trial this week in juvenile court.”

When students at Collinwood High School walked out to protest teacher layoffs, Destini and DeAsia Bronaugh were very lucky that a 22-year-old activist was on the scene. While the doors of the school had been chained shut, the handful of students who made it outside were pounced on by local police. Caleb’s video showed that DeAsia had not assaulted the police. The report in Workers World described the proceedings in court: “Magistrate Jeffrey Ehrbar wasn’t buying it. Right after the prosecution finished presenting its case, he dismissed all the charges on a motion from Gilbert. Ehrbar told the prosecutor, ‘I watch professional wrestling.’ He said he found it extremely unlikely that young DeAsia had carried out a dropkick, a difficult feat of athleticism when confronted by three police officers each weighing more than 200 pounds. After the charges were dismissed, DeAsia and her mother, Tina Bronaugh, embraced with tears of joy.”

Cleveland Scene described Caleb, writing: “The 22-year-old is chatty and affable, a skinny pale kid with a burning bush of unruly red hair. When it comes to talking politics, he’s obviously done his homework: facts, dates, obscure legislation, the fates of forgotten labor leaders, snippets of protest songs — in conversation he drops all forms of arcana from the annals of the American left. In part, he’s learned the game as a careful student of history, but he also sees himself as an inheritor of the radical tradition.”

The article quoted the then 82-year-old woman who had mentored him: “Frances Dostal is one of the ideology’s old-timers with confidence in a communist future, thanks largely to a new youth movement. Now in her eighties, she’s spent the lion’s share of the century working the frontlines of social causes from civil rights to the anti-war movement. Dostal says she’s seen a growing number of younger socialists become involved in hard-hit Rust Belt cities like Detroit; she believes Maupin and Gluntz could be the spark of a wider local resurgence. ‘Maupin’s energy is just incredible,’ she says. ‘I have hopes they’ll continue to bring in interest.’”

Without Caleb Maupin’s video recording, Two high school aged African American women would have gone to prison.

This article is an excerpt from a forthcoming Center for Political Innovation pamphlet entitled “Mossad’s War Against Caleb Maupin: How Biden’s FBI and Israel Tried to Destroy an Anti-Imperialist Voice… and Failed.”

Caleb Maupin protesting during the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.