[00:00:00] Welcome to a special edition of The Outlaws. This is Darvio, the Kingpin Marl. Don't forget
[00:00:34] to subscribe to our channel. We have a special interview with Cleveland City Councilman Richard
[00:00:51] Starr. He is addressing something that has been in the news. He's spoken out publicly
[00:01:00] and that is the hiring of Philip McHugh in the city's safety department as a safety advisor
[00:01:09] I believe is his official title. He is someone who was accused of violating an elderly black
[00:01:17] couple's civil rights when he was a police detective in Washington D.C. And there's
[00:01:24] been a fight between members of council and the mayor. The mayor hired, Mayor
[00:01:29] Bibb hired this guy and continues to double down on keeping him in that position. And
[00:01:36] members of council, including Councilman Starr are very unhappy and upset about that and
[00:01:44] are addressing it in the ways that are available to them. So we're going to get
[00:01:48] into the interview with Councilman Richard Starr right now. All right, we have a
[00:01:54] very special guest on the show today. He is Cleveland City Councilman Richard Starr.
[00:02:02] Welcome to the program. How you doing, sir? Hey, how you doing, brother? I'm pretty good.
[00:02:07] I'm having a great day. Just a good time. All right. All right. So man, there's been
[00:02:17] a lot of controversy around a particular hire that the mayor of Cleveland has made. And
[00:02:23] before we get kind of to your response and your feelings about it, let's start from the
[00:02:30] beginning. Who is who is Philip McHugh? What position has he been hired for? And what
[00:02:38] allegedly did he do in Washington D.C. in his previous job? Thank you. Thank you
[00:02:44] for a first for this interview and this time to just have a discussion. I really take the
[00:02:50] context that sometimes people in our community are not receiving the correct information on a
[00:02:56] lot of things or they're just not aware of what is going on when it comes to government. So
[00:03:03] the mayor administration has the right and right now based on the way charter and policy
[00:03:09] is written to hire whoever they want. Cleveland City Council do not hire, fire, or do any
[00:03:16] deployment or anything like that or enforce anything. We are the legislative body, but within
[00:03:22] that, the context to break it down to local government standpoint for someone to understand,
[00:03:27] Cleveland City Council is the board of government. I mean, the board of directors.
[00:03:31] As the board of directors, we have oversight. And with that being said, whether we have
[00:03:36] the policy in place or not, we do control how things are done. Positions are created. We have
[00:03:42] to approve those positions. Money is needed. We have to approve those things. 95% of the things
[00:03:47] that the mayor wants to do has to come through the legislative body and that's council. So
[00:03:54] the whole context of a Philip McHugh, he was a guy who once applied before he applied for
[00:04:01] a job. He first was a roommate, college roommate of Mayor Bid. So that means they have some
[00:04:07] type of formal relationship. And I believe Mayor Bid wanted to bring him on to work here
[00:04:13] in some type of capacity around safety. From the time he was hired in December up until now,
[00:04:18] he had three different titles. So he's had up and down on all these different positions. So
[00:04:24] one day at a safety committee meeting, I was looking around noticing a guy like,
[00:04:28] yo, I think this is the second safety committee meeting. I've noticed this individual.
[00:04:32] So I got up and proceeded to ask some of my colleagues on the safety committee
[00:04:36] to figure out who is he. So when I finally got his name, one council member said Philip,
[00:04:41] one said McHugh, and then they were trying to connect. Once I got everything, I sat down at
[00:04:46] my surface joint committee and I did a Google search. And when I did a Google search,
[00:04:51] I found a video at the top of the search, a video of a senior elder couple
[00:04:58] around in their seventies. And they were telling a story about how their civil rights were
[00:05:04] violated by Detective Philip McHugh and how he led an initiative to harass this couple.
[00:05:13] And when you look at the case, it all stems from a fender bender accident. And you look
[00:05:18] at this couple, they were in their bins and they were just having a nice time out.
[00:05:24] And through that fender bender altercation, Ms. Sherrod was in her car and she was flagging
[00:05:31] a lady off like, well, since you ain't going to basically give me your information or doing
[00:05:34] what you need to do, go ahead and just get out my face one of those, keep moving type
[00:05:39] of thing. And as you know, this lady then decides to call the police and make a false
[00:05:46] allegation and said, Ms. Sherrod was waving a gun at her. And the detective that was
[00:05:51] assigned to the case was Philip McHugh. Now someone calls a detective and said that somebody
[00:05:57] was possibly doing some type of activity with a gun with them. And the detective automatically
[00:06:05] just jumped in and believed whatever this lady was saying. I believe her name was Sarah,
[00:06:10] I don't know what her actual name is, but the lady said this made these false allegations
[00:06:15] and Philip McHugh as a detective took it and ran with it. And the things that he
[00:06:20] did within that case, he shows his lack of integrity, lack of respect and not even just
[00:06:28] the truth. He immediately got in contact with Ms. Sherrod and let her know that some
[00:06:34] allegation has been brought up and somebody was saying that she had a gun and she said,
[00:06:39] no, that's a lie. She said, I don't own a gun, never had a gun, that is not me.
[00:06:43] Philip McHugh then decides to run Ms. Sherrod and her husband through the federal database,
[00:06:53] state database to see if they ever purchased a gun. And what you find out was they've never
[00:06:58] owned a gun. Mr. or Ms. Sherrod never owned a gun, they're not gun carriers, that's not them.
[00:07:05] Next he puts in a request to say that they were involved in a possible felonious assault
[00:07:12] with a weapon and then had every from the state to the local patrol looking for Ms.
[00:07:18] Sherrod and her car. Now, the context of understanding this is it took the state and
[00:07:24] the federal government six weeks to pull over Ms. Sherrod. Mind you, an elderly couple,
[00:07:29] I mean most elderly couples are not out in their cars driving every day often as other
[00:07:36] individuals. You may be retired, you probably go to the store, go to a couple places,
[00:07:40] but not out owning a car. So it took the police six times, I mean six weeks for law enforcement
[00:07:46] to pull them over. But when law enforcement pulled the Sherrod family over, Philip McHugh
[00:07:52] gets the call and receives the call that they found the car and now he gets that call for
[00:07:58] him to be able to come to the scene and search the car. Though the context of what was
[00:08:04] happening, they then put an elderly couple in handcuffs, sit them to the sidewalk and for
[00:08:12] an hour search the car. So think of the mental tactics that is going on. You got an
[00:08:20] elder couple like I know I have a gun, there's not a gun, I've told you this before.
[00:08:24] Why are y'all pulling me over? Why are you still searching my car? Why am I sitting here?
[00:08:29] Why are we in handcuffs? Why are we being detained for something that is completely false?
[00:08:34] But Philip McHugh don't want to hear that. He believes in his heart because someone called
[00:08:38] him and said this allegation that it got to be true. Don't find a gun. Next thing you know,
[00:08:44] Philip McHugh tries to get them to then come downtown and to the police quarter,
[00:08:53] to make a conversation and a statement. Ms. McHugh, I mean Ms. Sherrod, she didn't believe him.
[00:09:00] She didn't trust him and she's like I'm not going anywhere. Next thing you know,
[00:09:04] after the car is stopped, Philip McHugh then goes and submit for a house search warrant.
[00:09:13] Now you knock at an elderly couple's house with the police and if anybody understands
[00:09:20] when a police comes to your house and do a search warrant, they don't pick up things
[00:09:25] and put them back in place. They tear up stuff. They slam the TV, knock things over,
[00:09:31] pull things out of your drawers and just leave your house like they were looking for something.
[00:09:37] And guess what? As they did their search warrant, yet again you don't find no gun.
[00:09:46] That right there, you say you stopped them, you get a call saying that they possibly had a
[00:09:50] gun and was pointing a gun at somebody. Don't find no truth to that. Then run a name to the
[00:09:55] database, find out they don't own a gun, never had. This couple has never owned a gun. Then
[00:10:01] you do flag the car to be stopped because it was probably been involved in some type of gun case.
[00:10:10] Still don't find a gun. Then you do a search of their home, still don't find a gun. And
[00:10:16] then you do an arrest warrant out for Mr. Sherrod. Now look at the context of this. Mr. Sherrod
[00:10:23] is a legally blind man. He can't even do much to help his wife in each one of these cases.
[00:10:32] In a car situation, when it first initially happened, then when they get pulled over,
[00:10:37] then they're in their house doing the search warrant. Now you're going to come arrest my
[00:10:41] wife and say she needs to turn herself in. So Mr. Sherrod with her pastor at fixing a warning
[00:10:50] goes to turn herself in prison in her Sunday's best clothes.
[00:10:56] So Phillip McHugh, you still don't got no evidence against this woman. Nothing that
[00:11:04] shows anything in her background for you to be doing this. Then when you get to a grand jury
[00:11:11] and told them like, no, you're completely wrong. So now you're trying to reverse it
[00:11:16] and not saying he wasn't leading it. So Phillip McHugh violated somebody's civil rights. A D.C.
[00:11:23] lawsuit was filed against the police force as well, McHugh, in which they pay a six figure
[00:11:30] settlement to the Sherrod family. Now this is not a family that you think like, oh, this
[00:11:36] is a cash grab. No, they were driving the beans. They were driving the beans.
[00:11:41] And you look at their house, they have done well for themselves. And for them to be living in D.C.,
[00:11:50] to be dinged and treated with their violation of their civil rights,
[00:11:57] being taken away from them and being treated like that for eight months by a detective
[00:12:02] shows that the integrity that McHugh has is not the good integrity that is needed for the city
[00:12:08] of Cleveland. So as that happened, Phillip McHugh then becomes put in a situation where he wanted to
[00:12:17] come to Cleveland. He has a relationship with Mayor Justin Bibb, stemming from his days
[00:12:22] as a college roommate and as a college roommate to Mayor Bibb, the relationship,
[00:12:26] keeping tact. My college roommate from Baltimore, Dan Turner, I talk to him on
[00:12:32] married day. I talk to him often as well. But your roommate then applies for a position in July
[00:12:40] for him to work in public safety. He didn't receive that position
[00:12:44] as a regular applicant. He didn't receive it. So next step, he decides to have communication,
[00:12:51] obviously with the mayor and Chief Bradford Davie, as well as Director Cole of Human Resources.
[00:12:57] And he starts to write his own job description and create a job, a position that wasn't funded
[00:13:03] in the budget. And then have the public safety go out and do a posting and do an interview.
[00:13:12] And then he gets selected for the job. He didn't go through the same protocols
[00:13:18] as everyone else. He didn't have a thorough background check. He wasn't vetted like they do
[00:13:23] any other police, because if he was vetted the same way as everyone else, the civil rights case
[00:13:29] would have came up. His background of other times where he was in trouble for pursuing
[00:13:36] a car without having authority, a high speed chase without authority. So he's showing that
[00:13:41] he has some rough rider, like he just a night rider, similar to some things that you would
[00:13:47] not want to see in Cleveland after we've done with civil, after we have dealt with civil rights
[00:13:52] violations, after we have dealt with police brutality in our city. We've dealt with violence
[00:13:58] involving police and at pedestrians and citizens in the city of Cleveland to now
[00:14:03] having somebody who has those type of tactics in their background and have shown that this is
[00:14:08] who they are to now having a job created that he created himself that is a senior level position
[00:14:16] and it's not being vetted just as any other senior level position would or as any other
[00:14:21] position was because of the relationship he has with the mayor. It is nothing but nepotism.
[00:14:27] It is disrespectful to all of the residents in Cleveland, especially the city workers that are
[00:14:35] in law enforcement. Imagine how that go if you to try to work their way up all your life
[00:14:40] and then you don't even get afforded an opportunity for a position and you may have the
[00:14:44] experience. McHugh ain't got that much experience. He has done nothing. His background has shown
[00:14:49] that he's going to be the one to do all type of anything and he don't believe in facts.
[00:14:55] He just pushed whatever narrative that he believed and on top of that when everything
[00:15:00] came about and Director Howard who was the director of safety he asked McHugh because he
[00:15:08] was told that he did not have to go all through all this extra checking and vetting for him to
[00:15:13] get hired. He asked if he had anything in his background and he said no. So you lied to the
[00:15:20] director and you created a position that was not that was picked for you and then trying
[00:15:27] to say well I didn't think I was going to get it. Well why did you create a job if you don't
[00:15:31] think you don't get it? It's like where do they do this at? Where is this privilege? Now
[00:15:39] to be honest about justice and I never seen nobody that looked like me get this type of
[00:15:44] opportunity just because who I know. That is not cool. That is not right. McHugh should
[00:15:51] not be in our city working in no type of leadership capacity. He has not shown any type of grace
[00:15:59] and he's going around lying to pastors and saying that lying to pastors, lying to Editorial Board
[00:16:04] or Cleveland.com, lying to other council members stating that the prosecutor made him
[00:16:12] continue to pursue this case. He told them that it wasn't true and things could have been
[00:16:19] more worse if he wasn't telling them to stop. Everyone knows when you look at the deposition
[00:16:27] it shows everything was laid by Philip McHugh. It was written by Philip McHugh. So what you said
[00:16:33] then and not what you're saying now is a contradiction. The conclusion of our interview
[00:16:38] with Councilman Richard Starr when we come back here on The Outlaws. Welcome back to The Outlaws Radio Show.
[00:16:53] Welcome back. Make sure that you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
[00:16:57] iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts and if you listen to this show on Apple please make
[00:17:01] sure you leave us a five-star review and a comment. It's very important for the algorithm
[00:17:05] and for those of you that have already done so thank you oh so very much. Let's get to
[00:17:09] the conclusion of our interview with Cleveland City Councilman Richard Starr. There was a story
[00:17:14] in Cleveland.com that said he essentially lied to Cleveland.com with his story and we'll get
[00:17:21] to that part in a second. So you discover this information we're talking with Cleveland
[00:17:27] City Councilman Richard Starr. You find this information. Once you discover
[00:17:33] this information about Philip McHugh not only as a councilman but also as a black man in the
[00:17:40] city how did you feel about that when you discovered that this guy with this history and
[00:17:47] this background now has this position in this city? I completely felt speechless and I said
[00:17:57] actually wow and that's where I'm like where do they do this at? Where is this allowed at?
[00:18:04] Name any other entity where this can actually occur and it'll be okay. I felt that if it
[00:18:11] was me I would never get this type of chance or opportunity. Never if somebody looked like me
[00:18:18] they would never get to that opportunity and it shows that it's who you know
[00:18:26] and also it shows you it looks like it's a black and white thing so you got to look at
[00:18:31] race. I mean they fired our safety director he resigned based on some policy rules.
[00:18:42] Fired our assistant safety director Jekima Dye who is a single parent who got dragged through
[00:18:49] the mud because she had a car accident and had her children in a city vehicle.
[00:18:54] His employees still to this day utilizing city vehicles with their children in a car.
[00:19:01] Still today. So she gets fired for an accident. Our third, our second assistant director of safety
[00:19:13] George Coulter a great stand-up African American man he decides to resign so our safety director
[00:19:22] was black. Our assistant director team with our African American black woman. George Coulter
[00:19:31] are an additional safety director black he decides to resign and then at the time our
[00:19:40] chief of police, chief Drummond at the time was black so we had a once in a lifetime.
[00:19:49] Now we have some people that look like myself that look like on the vast majority of
[00:19:55] Cleveland in some great leadership positions to do some great things they all get fired or
[00:20:02] forced to resign or just resign because of the nepotism and the drama that is going on.
[00:20:08] The administration wanted to carry Howard to hire someone and trying someone to be his
[00:20:14] replacement. This is not right. So the thing that has kind of puzzled me the most and I
[00:20:26] would love to get your thoughts on if you have any insight on why they're doing this
[00:20:31] is once this all came out I would have expected in any other situation that they would have let
[00:20:39] this guy go and move on but the administration is doubling down on that and I can't figure out
[00:20:48] why it doesn't make sense city wise it doesn't make sense politically it doesn't make sense
[00:20:56] in any way that you want to look at it. I don't understand why they seem determined
[00:21:03] to keep this guy what are your thoughts? The reason why I think that they're
[00:21:08] determined to double they're doubling down and determined to do this is because of the
[00:21:13] relationship that this individual has with the mayor. Maybe this guy Philip McHugh is a close
[00:21:20] friend and they go back maybe Mayor Bibb is looking to say this my watch guy my watchdog
[00:21:27] now I don't care what his background is and for them to say they knew about they've came out
[00:21:34] and said they knew about this case and knew what happened and say he's the best qualified
[00:21:38] candidate that's when you know that their integrity and their values and their character
[00:21:44] is on display and that's the mayor he's like hey this is my friend and I want him here next
[00:21:50] to me and I'll take it and I don't mind dealing with any other consequences because
[00:21:57] I feel like this is my friend and that is not how you get things done and the ones who are
[00:22:02] around him advising him and his team are letting them look like a clown out here
[00:22:09] and that's the issue I have is the fact that this should not be happening it's not about
[00:22:15] a win or a loss it's about the optics it's about the residents it's about the citizens
[00:22:19] in the city of Cleveland having someone in a position that's going to try to discipline and
[00:22:26] advise and do different things when it comes to safety when they have shown that they don't even
[00:22:31] know what they're doing when they know that they will violate somebody's rights
[00:22:36] that ain't what we're doing and that was frustrating me the most and for me to look up
[00:22:41] and see that mayor Bia and mayor Bia is a millennial and a black leader and he talked
[00:22:50] about transparency he talked so bad about previous administrations and talked about
[00:22:56] campaigning about doing things right to campaign about his grandma so you're telling me Philip
[00:23:01] McHugh that with his background if your grandma was somebody called something on his grandma
[00:23:06] he'd lock his grandma up and did the same thing so how you gonna say my grandma is my
[00:23:13] backbone but then hire somebody that possibly would have I locked your grandma up if somebody
[00:23:16] made a call like this well it's asking me wow the president of Cleveland city councilman
[00:23:24] Richard Starr and have you heard from your residents or residents in your ward talking
[00:23:30] about this man residents been calling all three of my cell phones residents from war five
[00:23:36] residents from throughout the city employees within the city staff everywhere I go councilman
[00:23:42] we need you councilman this is not right councilman thank you for speaking up because
[00:23:48] this this type of thing shouldn't happen councilman I worked for the city and I got
[00:23:52] fired for me asked just some basic questions on why we doing things and I was trying to
[00:23:56] challenge the status quo a little bit and I was fired without no background or without no
[00:24:02] documentation I wasn't just let go everyone everyone in the city that I've that I've known
[00:24:08] or have communication with or any type of form of relationship whether they were
[00:24:14] support me or don't support me have spoken to me I've had a array of different
[00:24:19] individuals reached out and said this is completely wrong and the mayor is going to
[00:24:23] have to deal with this later and they mean it and a lot of residents are talking about
[00:24:28] when elections time come on they will not forget this yeah yeah yeah I've been hearing
[00:24:33] the same and this is this has really kind of penetrated the consciousness
[00:24:38] of people in the city more than than anything else has now I know you mentioned earlier
[00:24:44] um about council's role and how you can't as the the rules stand right now there really isn't much
[00:24:51] that you all can do but I know that there is a couple of you have been proposing
[00:24:56] uh sort of changing that so let's talk a little bit about that from my understanding
[00:25:01] it seems like maybe it would become something similar to like how the senate does uh in
[00:25:08] congress where the president appoints someone but the senate has to confirm it um is that
[00:25:13] something is that the process similar to the process that you're trying to put in place
[00:25:17] yeah similar to that process as well as a similar process for a coyote county council
[00:25:23] they have to approve certain type of senior level positions that the county executive
[00:25:28] wants to hire on county executive can go through the interview and the selection
[00:25:32] then that setting process but then ultimately has to be approved um through the county council
[00:25:38] with different ordinances to allow them to be able to get into that position so that's something
[00:25:42] i'm looking into but also even currently before we get into that um it's a budget the budget
[00:25:48] that that we have to pay people has to be approved by clemency council so if there's
[00:25:54] a position that's funded or is a position that we want to eliminate in council we have the
[00:25:59] authority to do that right right so um so i'm assuming that there's there's going to be
[00:26:07] some movement on one of those two things if not both uh sometime in the future here so um
[00:26:16] if you and i know i'm sure you've probably had conversations with the mayor i know you said
[00:26:21] a lot of this stuff publicly um if you were able to you know look one-on-one eye to eye
[00:26:28] with the mayor about this situation what would you what would you say to the mayor about this
[00:26:33] i would say to the mayor you you say you are a black young millennial you say you from mount
[00:26:39] pleasant you say you from the urban neighborhood you say you from cleveland you say you love
[00:26:43] cleveland well if you love cleveland you will let philip mcquee go if you really for this
[00:26:49] community if you really want to be a transparent on mayor you want to be the
[00:26:55] mayor that helped modernize um the city you wouldn't be going back hiring people with this
[00:27:01] people with this jim crow tactics racism background and those individuals would not be
[00:27:06] around your camp also what's other mayor stop you need to get some real people around you
[00:27:11] because if you ask someone real that would really have your ear that really care about you
[00:27:15] may or be they wouldn't allow you to make this this incompetent decision they would not
[00:27:22] allow you to be out here being made a fool because you just think about a quote-unquote
[00:27:27] friendship as opposed to thinking about your career thinking about the people but at the end
[00:27:33] of day i would let them know like don't believe that voter turnout is is low on the east side
[00:27:39] or in urban neighborhoods as if voter turnout cannot change and flip in one election due to
[00:27:44] things that happen i'll also let the mayor know is you walk in and tiptoeing similar
[00:27:49] to the same mistakes the same issues that mayor jane capo has and you're going to you're
[00:27:54] going to be a one-time mayor if you keep this up and that's the direction you're heading in
[00:28:01] all right councilman star let everybody know if they want to get in contact with your office
[00:28:07] follow you on social media keep up with with this and everything else you got going on
[00:28:11] let them know how to do that yep hey everyone my my office number is um 216-664-2309
[00:28:19] my email is rstarr at cleveland city council if you want to follow anything going on social media
[00:28:26] wise my social media account for instagram is councilmember underscore richard star and then
[00:28:33] also the same for on facebook as well as twitter with the r with a one all right man thank you so
[00:28:41] much uh for coming on the show and spending time with us we appreciate it man thank you
[00:28:45] anytime i appreciate you have a great afternoon one more time thank you to councilman star
[00:28:49] for coming on the show really appreciate it we are out of here we'll see you next time peace
[00:29:11] this has been a presentation of the fcb podcast network where real talk lives
[00:29:17] visit us online at fcbpodcast.com