Thread by @sahrasulaiman

Waking up in restraints to realize he was suspected of being involved in the shooting that nearly killed him was bad enough for 38yo Jermaine Welch. But he hadn't anticipated learning LAPD might have been the ones that shot him.
la.streetsblog.org/2020/07/13/bys…

He'd been out making deliveries on the night of June 3 when he came upon a crowd at Broadway/Manchester. He heard someone yell "F*ck the cops!", saw a bright light, and heard a burst of shots. Then the intersection exploded in gunfire.

He knew he'd been hit and he had to get out of there. His hand was mangled - he'd thrown it in front of his face to protect his head - and the bullet that had burrowed in through his ribs had damaged a lung.

He got as far south as Imperial and Figueroa before realizing he was fading. He flagged down LASD for help. But he says the deputy restrained him on the ground and asked about his involvement in the shooting, even attempting to use Jermaine's fingers to unlock his phone.

He wondered if he just should have tried to power through to the hospital on his own, even though he probably would not have made it.

LAPD didn't treat him any better. When officers showed up at his bedside to ask what he remembered from that night, they didn't seem to believe he'd been working, he says. As of 40 days after the shooting, they still hadn't bothered to check with his employer to verify his story.

Instead, when Jermaine showed up at the station to retrieve his shoes (customized in honor of #NipseyHussle), clothes, phone, & the $3000 he had collected doing deliveries that night, LAPD denied having his things and made him wait while they got a warrant for his phone.

The justification? LAPD was claiming he was tied to an attempted murder. His own? The other man's? Someone else's? He wasn't sure... but the fact that they wanted to search the phone history dating back to Jan 2019 meant they were casting a really wide net.

"I'm the victim in this situation," Jermaine says. But he's never once been treated that way.

LAPD needs to justify what appears to be Ofc Nathaniel Beck's decision to fire into the crowd that night, possibly hitting Jermaine in the process.

They need a threat.

Reports from that night are murky. Reporters accepted LAPD's claims that the officers had stumbled into a dangerous situation, possibly a shoot-out already underway, and did not question why an OIS then "occurred." ktla.com/news/local-new…

Reporters also accepted LAPD's claims that the two men shot (one of whom was Jermaine) were “involved or part of the group” that had participated in the shooting.
foxla.com/news/two-wound…

The LAPD's own statement released two days later omitted that detail, but the record was never corrected, making it easier for them to continue to probe Jermaine's background. lapdonline.org/newsroom/news_…

It makes sense that LAPD would want to divert attention. When officers fired into a crowded Silver Lake Trader Joe's, killing Mely Corado in 2018, their tactics came under intense scrutiny - something they're looking to avoid during this #defund moment. latimes.com/local/lanow/la…

Also, while Beck was commended for an OIS he participated in in 2017 (along with Aaron Harrington, the officer who happens to be named on the warrant and affidavit for Jermaine's phone) that was credited with helping save a DV victim... da.lacounty.gov/sites/default/…

There was an incident in 2009 in which he was alleged to have threatened the life of the 14yo middle-schooler his then-wife was sexually abusing. Beck and the LAPD were subsequently sued.

LAPD should be dropping the body cam footage from 6/3 in the next 2 days, at which point it should be clearer what transpired that night. At least, during the shooting. It is unlikely that they will release videos of the officers rounding up bystanders, of which there were many.

All of which is to say that as the debates around whether to reform or #DefundThePolice continue, cases like Jermaine's, which offer a real look into the systemic nature of racism w/in LAPD, really need to be part of the conversation.
la.streetsblog.org/2020/07/13/bys…

Why is LAPD digging into Jermaine's phone dating back to January 1, 2019 -a full year and a half ago- instead of calling his employer to verify he was working that night? And why, when he called to ask about his stuff recently, did they ask about whether he had a second phone?

Why did they tell him they didn't have his shoes or his $3000 in delivery money the first time he showed up at the station only to tell him now that they found his shoes and $15 of the money they took off his person that night?

Why can't they just see him as a victim?

They know he isn't seen that way by LAPD, the justice system, or the rest of the city - once a gang-banger, always a gang-banger. Even if he left that life behind long ago and now helps with gang peace negotiations and motivational speaking to encourage youth to go to college.

Meanwhile, being shot upended his life. He lost his housing, his former roommate stole half his stuff, he has yet to get help from the victim's of crime assistance program, and he's living in the car he was still cleaning blood out of last week.

We have joked that his Nipsey shoes will be his salvation (I met him in 2019 bc I was photographing the funeral procession that day). "Imagine if I had to go through this by myself?" he said recently, wondering how he could ever fight LAPD on his own. la.streetsblog.org/2019/04/12/sou…

How could he ever prove that he was just trying to be a good father to his daughters and a good example to the youth in the neighborhood when they could look at his past and paint whatever picture they wanted?

He's not sure, but he's speaking up now because if there ever was a moment to see real change happen, it was this one. Please see his story here: la.streetsblog.org/2020/07/13/bys…

And if you have the means and are so inclined, the gofundme to help get him back on his feet is here: gofundme.com/f/victim-of-cu…