POLICE BRUTALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE REFORM——SOME THOUGHTS

The Senate conducted hearings on Police Brutality and Social Justice Reform today. We will know they are serious when they abolish the Patriot Act and have witnesses who are victims of wrongful convictions also testify. Issues of high bails, arrests, community policing, police investigation of blacks, not investigating crimes against blacks, lack of fair trials, meaningful appeals and appellate review need reform and must be addressed. Moreover, the Senate is padding the courts with incompetent, corrupt and biased judges which will exacerbate the problem and creates the impression that the fox is pretending to watch the hen house but has no intention of protecting the chicks within aka the American people.

Police brutality is an issue long overdue for change in America. There has been a rash of murders of black men recently on an almost daily or weekly basis. The murder of George Floyd was almost too painful to watch. We had not recovered from white men lying in wait for a jogging Aubrey with weapon and shooting him dead and not being charged with a crime for months. I think what got most people was the number of prosecutors who refused to prosecute or bring charges against the killers because it was only a black man who was shot three times. Then a medic was shot dead while sleeping and she did not have a criminal record or any filed charges against her. Her boyfriend was calling 911.  The police were the ones who were breaking into their home. Other killings are being reported on almost a daily basis. Americans are given hope for change once again because of the diversity of the protesters but we have been there before as well.

I remember my friend’s mother telling me about a young black teenager being hung in the middle of town on the spot when he accidentally bumped into a white female. A white woman could make any charge against a black male and he would be hanged instantly without a trial. Young black men have been shot by the police since time began. I grew up in fear that I or my family would be killed at any time when whites would come through “ni..er shooting” on the weekend. No white would ever be charged with a crime no matter how many blacks were killed. No white man would ever be charged for raping a black woman in America. Like a simmering teapot, the drops of the deaths of young black men and women become too many and the teapot overran. America and the world had had enough. Let us hope that the anger and intensity remain to really bring about change and equal justice for all.

A comparison of my experience in Michigan and Texas will give some insight into the problem. First, I had an accident in which I was hit from the rear  by a truck in Michigan. The report listed me at fault. The driver who hit me was speeding in a school zone. He was white. I was black.  When I got the report, I went to the station to complain. I was hit in the rear by the truck.  How could I be blamed for the accident and he was also speeding. I was disrespected by a white officer and ordered to leave the station. I called the police and complained to internal affairs. They told me to go back into the station. When I went back into the station, I was arrested and strip searched. I was humiliated. I wrote the Mayor Coleman Young. He had the Chief of Police to address the issue. A policeman was in my home in three days. They did an accident reconstruction and I was deemed not to have been at fault. I was given an written apology, my arrest record was removed and returned to me. All charges were dropped. A new accident report was also made stating that the other driver was at fault. I had not argued back, cursed or gotten loud with the officer and this was proven with the cameras.  By contrast, my apartment was burglarized in Houston, Texas in 2010. It was burglarized several times. I was told that no burglary report had been made. A mental health complaint had been made instead of a burglary and theft report. When I asked why, I was told that when two burglary reports are made by one person, they become mental health complaints. I demanded to speak to a supervisor.  When I talked to the supervisor, I was told by the supervisor who was a white male officer that I was on medication and he was not going to listen to anything that I had to say. I was not on any medication at that time except two milligrams of hydrochlorathiazide for blood pressure. The supervisor told me that no burglary had occurred. I tried to get a copy of the burglary report for insurance purposes and was told that no report had been made because I was mentally ill. Only a mentally ill person would be robbed two times and make a complaint. I had three witnesses– a neighbor told me that she saw Kenneth Prejean going in and out of my home and moving things. She thought he and I were moving in together because of his activity. Two neighbors who were children told me that they saw the people from downstairs moving all of my clothes and things from my home. “They moved things from your home all night and came back the next day  with two men and moved more things.”  They are going to steal all of your stuff if you do not get you some protection,” the young child stated. “I saw him and my brother saw him too.”  I went in to the station to complain about no burglary report being made and a “mental health” complaint being made for burglary of my home. The black officer was demeaning and disrespectful. I requested to speak to his supervisor.  When someone came out, I overheard him saying to the officer that I had a mental problem and was on medication. They did not want to be bothered with my issue. Their attitude was denigrating, demeaning and disrespectful. They were insulted that wanted to complain and allege that I had thousands of dollars of personal items and jewelry stolen. Three closets of clothing and shoes were stolen along with books and other legal papers and personal papers and documents. There theory was that no black woman could have anything of value that anyone would want to steal. I filed a complaint against the officers of this precinct with internal affairs. No officer talked to me after the complaint was filed from the department. No officer came to my home to talk to me. No one apologized to me for the officers conduct and behavior. There was a “white wash” with respect to conduct of the officers involved. I was told that my complaint against the officer who called me crazy and disrespected me for complaining would be “talked to” by his supervisor about how to conduct interviews of a complainant. That was all.  In Michigan, I was invited to attend a monthly meeting with the police where community complaints were addressed by the police. In Houston, I received a white wash letter. I had been humiliated and disrespected for simply making a burglary complaint when my apartment was cleaned out while I was out of town. To even add insult to injury, I had to pay approximately eleven hundred dollars for the three burglaries that had been reported by my alarm company.  The alarms reported by ADT alarm company were deemed false because the burglars were not present when the police arrived. The police always take several hours to arrive so the apartment owner must pay in Houston. In Michigan, no fee has to be paid to the city for an alarm call by the company to the police for a break-in. I had to give up my burglar alarm at that time because I had to borrow the money to pay the fines for the false alarms. Being poor and seeking protection is dehumanizing in the black community. You and your possessions are devalued because of your race and location. All over this country the life of the black man like his possessions are devalued. He is made to feel that there is something wrong with him mentally if he cannot protect his property and life while at the same time telling him that his life and valuables have no value. I got cameras and found the pictures of three white men on the cameras in my apartment and three black men of which two were the neighbor below me and his brother. One of the children told me that Ike, another neighbor had been seen coming out of my apartment with a bag full of something. The garbage bag was black. The police did not conduct any type of investigation of the thefts and burglaries. Burglaries would occur on a regular basis in Houston. Sometimes almost weekly. I lived in the same home for thirty three years in Michigan. I only had one or two small break-ins the first year that I moved into my home. We had neighborhood watch in Michigan. People were serious about crime in Michigan. They did not play. If the police did not patrol, the men would stay home and protect the women. A burglar or two would be shot. Burglars would know the community was serious about stopping crime. The neighborhood would not be under constant assault from crime by the neighbors or anyone else. A Kenneth Prejean would be killed or arrested in Michigan. In Houston, he is protected. The neighbors will not report him and the police will not arrest him because the victim is black. Blacks are tired of this negligent policing in Houston. My apartments have been burglarized more than one hundred times and not one officer has come to investigate even when they know who the burglars are in the case of the assistant managers and maintenance persons where I am currently residing. Blacks do not receive protection from the law in Texas. Houston needs community policing. There has been some recent improvement, but more is needed.

More issues could be discussed in detail but unless the Senate does a comprehensive investigation and fact gathering, things will remain the same. In Texas, the criminal justice system is so corrupt that a complete overall is needed. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is the centerpiece of the corruption in Texas. There is no component of the criminal justice system that is not corrupt.  Nevertheless, Houston has some bright spots. They have a good prosecutor. They have  judges who will not allow insufficient charges to go forth and innocent persons to be falsely prosecuted. They have reformed the bail system. They may be a model for the nation on punishment. They operate within a corrupt system where there is no hope of fair trials, meaningful appeals or appellate review. Court records are altered daily. Journalists had reported finding judicial records in trash cans on every floor on more than one occasion. This kind of corruption must end. It is impossible to obtain a trial transcript in a civil or criminal case in Texas. Racism and corruption have been institutionalized into the judicial system in Texas and will not be easy to eradicate. In 1985, a white lawyer told me to save my money because I would be wasting my time trying to litigate because he did not know of a single judge in this town that would rule in favor of a black person. This could be said about judges all over the country. It is time to change the culture.