Thread by @socialistdogmom

“this is the experience of a lot of people,” mayor walker says at the start of a panel discussion of the central park five miniseries, when they see us.

before the panel begins, mayor walker asks for a moment of silence for joshua brown, the neighbor who testified against botham jean’s murderer who was himself murdered yesterday, just days after helping convict a killer cop

“they care more about their jobs than about these babies, they were babies,” says one of the panelists about the corrupt criminal justice system that convicted those boys.

it’s heartbreaking to hear black grandmothers talk about the importance of teaching their children and grandchildren about the dangers of the system that wants to kill them. my parents didn’t have to do that.

the fourth panelist says police recently destroyed his house. they showed with a warrant that didn’t even have his son’s name on it & tore the house apart in front of his grandchildren.
“thank god none of them got really hurt,” he says.

police showed up with armored vehicles looking for drugs. “if he’d reached for a cell phone or something he’d be dead.”

i could be mistaken but it sounds like he may be the owner of the home that was raided last month by the JADE task force

nbc29.com/story/40975839…

“what was the hardest part of that film for you to watch?” mayor walker asks the panelists. a man who works with formerly incarcerated fathers says the worst for him was the dehumanizing language used by the cops about the boys.

“as a parent, the hardest part for me was watching them struggle” with being forced to lie, says one panelist.
the next panelist agrees - “they’re beating on this baby,” forcing him to tell lies.

the fourth panelist says he’s been interrogated before.
“and people wonder why you don’t have respect for the police!”
he’s not hopeful about change. he says things today are a lot like they were when he was first incarcerated in 1976.

he was in a therapeutic community in 2001-2002. “i saw that the system wasn’t gonna change, so i had to make some personal changes.” he says he now sees at as his personal duty to give back to the community. “i know we can do better because i have done better.”

“they’re killing us now. all of ‘em don’t make it to the courtroom,” he says. you could be at the wrong place at the wrong time and never make it home again.

one panelist says she turned her life over to god while incarcerated. she has been clean since 2000 and now does jail ministry work with incarcerated women.

“we who are not behind the walls don’t have a clue” what people in prison have to deal with, says the other panelist who does prison ministry work.

one panelist says after getting out of jail he “built a jail cell around my own self” and had a really hard time after being released. that experience led him to his work now with formerly incarcerated fathers.

“how difficult is it to stay out of the criminal justice system in charlottesville?” mayor walker asks. there are some knowing chuckles from panelists and audience members.

panelist #1 says it is extremely difficult and a strong support network is necessary. #2 has never been incarcerated and passes. #3 says staying out of the system may be easier for her as a woman than it is for a man.

the fourth panelist says he’s had four felonies and done a substantial amount of time, but staying out of the system is not so difficult for him now because of the changes he’s made in his life.

he says the last time he was sentenced by a judge, in 2002, the judge told him if he ever broke the law again he’d be put so deep into the penitentiary he’d never see the sun shine again.

a member of the audience says in the show there seemed to be some cops who felt like what was happening was wrong. she asks what we as a community can do to support people in the system who feel trapped by the abuses in the system around them.

(personally i think that’s a shitty question to ask a bunch of formerly incarcerated black people! how can we support cops????)

“you hear a lot of stories about bloods and crips, but these guys in blue... that’s the biggest gang in the united states of america,” says the fourth panelist.
he recalls again the murder of joshua brown. “who do you think killed him?”

“these folks are supposed to be protecting us. but who is protecting us from them?”
“all of them knew what they were doing was wrong,” he says of the officers involved in the central park five interrogations.

“it’s very hard for one or two people to change the system,” says the first panelist. “if we want to help them, we should look at changing the way we foster justice.”

mayor walker says this happens everywhere. why didn’t the black cop in the precinct speak up? “we all know why.” what would’ve happened to him if he did? would it have changed the outcome?

another woman in the audience says the best defense is education, not just of children, but of parents. she recalls the moment in the show where yusef salaam’s mother interrupts the interrogation. “this should be shown in schools.”

again, it’s heartbreaking that the most reasonable course of action is for black children to know their rights, not to expect the system to respect their rights.

and a panelist recalls the moment in the miniseries where one boy’s father is pressured by the cops to make his son lie by being reminded of his own past incarceration. the effects of incarceration reverberate through family trees.

mayor walker asks the panelists to speak to the reality of coerced guilty pleas. most cases never even go to trial.
the fourth panelist says he took a plea on a distribution charge to avoid the risk of a possible forty year sentence.

“i’m not gonna be foolish enough to take that chance,” he says. he pleaded guilty to get 19 months rather than risk 40 years.
he says, too, he knew then what a “jury of his peers” would probably look like, which influenced his choice to plead out.

two of the panelists are darkly laughing about the irony of how many guilty pleas are coerced solely based on the word of other convicted drug dealers. that’s the only time a cop seems willing to take a drug dealer’s word.

the disproportionate minority contact report hasn’t been officially released yet, but mayor walker says the report shows that at every point of contact in our criminal justice system, black men experience worse outcomes.

every step of the way. more likely to be stopped. more likely to be arrested. less likely to get bail. more likely to be overcharged. more likely to be convicted. more likely to get longer sentences. black men are not getting equal justice.

“black people were never afforded that public health crisis label. we were criminals,” mayor walker says. there was never a consideration about how people ended up in the position where they were using drugs. we aren’t talking about the foundational issues of poverty & addiction.

“people have been using heroin for years,” says the fourth panelist. “we been overdosing since the beginning.” but NOW it’s a public health crisis.

he says many of his friends came home from the vietnam war as heroin addicts.
as a former heroin addict, he isn’t optimistic about an end to the opioid crisis.

the first panelist says there wasn’t even a methadone clinic in charlottesville until opioid abuse was a problem outside the black community.

the fourth panelist says when the police raided his house last month, the warrant didn’t even have his son’s name on it. in the weeks since, the cops’ story has changed rapidly & multiple times in what seems like an after the fact justification for the raid.

“if you could talk to any official in our criminal justice system,” and suggest a change to be implemented, what would it be? mayor walker asks.

the fourth panelist says he talks to prosecutors all the time. he says change will be gradual & he’s seen some changes for the better in local prosecutor joe platania.

he also had some words about personal accountability, which mayor walker pushes back on. outcomes are different for black people & white people in this system. we have to ensure that everyone entering the system is treated equally.

“it all stems from white supremacy,” he says, with a resigned sort of laugh. “they either wanna kill us or lock us up.”

“when you’re in court, the judge is almighty god,” says the third panelist. “if we could find faithful judges, faithful lawyers... but there’s just so much corruption.”

“we want each case addressed individually,” the fourth panelist says.

he says most days in the courtroom, there are fewer people there than there are here today - “most people don’t have nobody’s support.”

an audience member says one thing we can do is lobby the general assembly to better fund public defenders - they’re overworked and underpaid and people aren’t getting adequate representation

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1178796869255868422?s=21

the first panelist says it’s important to get landlords, employers, your neighbors to understand this is a city of second chances. “we should be in the business of giving people real hope.”

next sunday they’ll be screening parts 2 & 3 of the miniseries. after part 2, there will be a panel of people who work in the system talking about reforms being undertaken. after part 3, there will be a panel of formerly incarcerated men.

that’s next sunday at 1pm at the jefferson school african american heritage center.
today’s screening and panel was really great. i hope to see some more people here next week!

technically, politically speaking, charlottesville does not have a “strong mayor” government, but we do have a mayor who is a very strong, powerful woman. putting on events like this is so important.

mayor walker talks a lot about ensuring affected communities get a seat at the table for conversations about issues that affect them, but i’m not sure she’s giving herself enough credit. she’s setting tables for conversations that weren’t even being had at all.