[Peace] Three Cops Versus An Entire Community

[Brian Dolinar]

*Three Cops Versus An Entire Community*
By Brian Dolinar

Nearly a year ago, on March 30, 2007, when a 17 year-old black youth was
stopped in Douglass Park, pepper sprayed, and sent to the hospital by
Champaign police, it put the issue of police brutality in the spotlight just
two weeks before an election for several seats on the Champaign City
Council. The incident occurred down the street from the home of Gina
Jackson, the only African American on City Council member and representative
from the Douglass Park district, who was holding a Democratic Party social
that fateful Friday night. She as well as City Council member Michael LaDue
saw the aftermath of the event.

The incident was quickly swept under the rug by the local media, assisted by
the comments of Jackson herself who at the City Council meeting following
the incident stated, "racial profiling exists. It always has and it always
will." During the election on April 15, Latino Councilman Giraldo Rosales,
who had been pushing for a police review board in Champaign, was voted out
and the City Council shifted to the right. Three months later, the Champaign
City Council voted down any future discussion about a police review board,
against the recommendations of their own Human Relations Commission.

The trial of Brian Chesley, the 17 year-old charged with two misdemeanors
for resisting and obstructing a peace officer, began on March 25, 2008 and
ended four days later with a guilty verdict on both counts. A rotating group
of 40-50 community members sat through portions of the trial in support of
Chesley. Attorneys Bob Kirchner and Ruth Wyman took the case pro bono. They
called 14 witnesses, most of them youth from ages 9 to 18, and all of them
African American. The trial depended on who a jury would believe—three
Champaign police officers or an entire community.

The trial started with the selection of an all-white jury. Of 46 potential
jurors, only one was African American. During the questioning of jurors,
attorney Ruth Wyman asked each individual what kinds of social groups and
organizations they were members of and if they had any contact with African
American youth. Most all of the white prospective jurors said they had no
such interaction. It was predictable whose story they would believe.

*The Police*

First to testify for the prosecution was Andre Davis, the Champaign police
officer who first attempted to stop Chesley. He was questioned by Assistant
State's Attorney Rob Scales, representing the office of Julia Rietz, up for
re-election in November 2008. Officer Davis, a African American officer who
has been with the Champaign Police department for three years and served
seven years in the U.S. Navy, explained his reasoning for stopping Chesley.
He said he parked in the circle drive in front of the Douglass Park library
and gymnasium at approximately 8:30 p.m. to sort out some paperwork. Davis
testified that he saw no one else, just two subjects walking through the
park (the second individual he never identified). The park closed at dusk
and he said he could have arrested them for trespassing. He also said he was
not aware of any activities taking place at the gym that night.

Davis exited the vehicle, shined a flashlight on the two, and asked them to
stop. According to Davis, Chesley said, "Fuck y'all. I ain't got to do shit.
You ain't running me. I just left the open gym," and accelerated his pace.
Davis radioed for back up. After Chesley had crossed the street and was on
the sidewalk, officers Justus Clinton and Shannon Bridges pulled up and
confronted him. Davis saw the two officers struggling with Chesley and
joined them in handcuffing him. Afterwards, when Chesley had to be taken to
the hospital, Davis rode with him in the ambulance and, without an attorney
present, asked Chesley why he didn't he stop. Chesley said he was pissed off
because he was hit in the face at the gym.

Under cross-examination by Bob Kirchner, officer Davis admitted that he had
been instructed during police briefing to stop individuals, obtain their
information, check for warrants, and enter the incident into a database.
Davis said this was a "customary practice," he had the right to stop
"anyone" in the North district, and this was not based on color or
nationality. Kirchner questioned Davis why he did not write anything about
trespassing in his police report. Davis admitted that he never told Chesley
he was trespassing and that he stopped Chesley because, "I wanted to know
why he was in the park." When Kirchner attempted to ask Davis whether the
police were maintaining a database on African American youth, Judge John R.
Kennedy, who denied the wide majority of Kirchner's motions, refused this
line of inquiry.

Witnesses would later testify that the gym was open until 11 p.m. and that
there were people coming and going from playing basketball. They described
approximately 50-60 youth inside the gym. It was one of the first warm
nights of spring and there were 15-20 kids in the park that night in front
of the library, on benches, and on the outdoor basketball court. Kirchner
pressed Davis as to why he selectively stopped Chesley. The question went
unanswered. How were youth expected to leave the gymnasium if all of the
surrounding park area was closed at dusk?

Officers Shannon Bridges and Justus Clinton, both white, followed Davis on
the stand. They detailed how they drove up 5th Street in a squad car and
turned onto Tremont, where they saw Chesley on the sidewalk, across the
street from the park. Bridges got out of the car and asked Chesley to stop.
Chesley refused to stop and continued walking. Bridges then grabbed
Chesley's right arm and put it behind his back in a move called a "chicken
wing." According to her, Chesley "squared up" and took a defensive stance.
Speaking in euphemisms, she said that she "secured" Chesley on a fence, but
he fought back. By that time, officer Clinton had grabbed his left arm.
Next, Bridges described officer Clinton putting Chesley in a "bear hug" and
"assisting" him to the ground—the middle of Tremont street approximately 10
feet away. Bridges also confirmed that, due to recent criminal and drug
activity, police were instructed to check IDs on individuals who had not
committed, were not committing, and were not believed to be about to commit
any crimes, and enter them into a database.

*The Community *

The African American youth who were in the park that night gave a different
account of what happened. Due to their fear of retaliation from the police,
we have chosen not to publish their full names. Among them were: Miguel, JJ,
Jeremiah, Kermaine, Reyanna, Tashonda, Devon, Paris, Alicia, Alinda, Naysa.
Community leaders Terry Townsend and Patricia Avery, also testified. As
attorney Ruth Wyman stated in her opening argument, this trial pitted those
who were professional witnesses against ordinary people who were "not
polished, because they are not."

Miguel, who was 15 at the time, and J.J. who was 8 years old, both testified
on the stand that they were playing basketball with Chesley at the Douglass
Park gymnasium as part of a Mission 180 program that was held every Friday
night until 11 p.m. The three of them were leaving the gym to go to the
"Arab," a convenience store at 4th and Tremont, and then take little J.J.
home. They said police stopped Chesley, pushed him into a fence, picked him
up, and slammed him face first onto the concrete in the street. Chesley was
not fighting back. They didn't know what he was being arrested for.

While officer Bridges described Chesley as being "assisted" to the ground,
others who testified said that police: "jumped him," "tackled him down,"
"piled up on him," "stacked on top of him," "were brutally beating him,"
"whooping him," and "manhandling him." Two witnesses said police pepper
sprayed Chesley three times. Another said the smell of pepper spray was
"real strong." All heard Chesley screaming out repeatedly that he couldn't
breath, but said police would not get off of him. Young J.J. said that his
friend Brian, "looked dead." Miguel thought the same until police picked him
up. "He was wobbling," Miguel described, "he couldn't hold himself up."

All the defense's witnesses, children and adults, said Chesley was bleeding
from his nose and mouth. Patricia Avery was at the Democratic Party social
and went outside after one of the neighborhood kids ran to Gina Jackson's
house. Upon arriving, she saw Chesley bleeding, a large crowd with people
taking pictures, and police forming a barricade around him.

Upon rebuttal by prosecutor Scales, Champaign City Council member Gina
Jackson was called to testify. Jackson, a retired military officer, said
what she saw was only mucous, not blood. In his closing argument, Scales
used her comments to discredit the testimony of numerous others who said
they saw blood, repeatedly referring to her as "Councilwoman Jackson." It
was dark, said Scales, and people were mistaken. Judge Kennedy nodded in
agreement.

Friends who knew him described Chesley as a good kid, never involved in
fights, and always playing basketball. Reyanna said he was "pretty cool."
Paris said he was friends with everybody, he had "no mouth, never fights or
argues."  His girlfriend at the time said, "He don't start nothing."

Chesley decided to take the stand and testified that he heard Davis instruct
him to stop, but told the officer, "I didn't do nothing wrong." He described
getting his hoodie stuck on the fence when he was thrown against it. In
reaching to get his hood unstuck, it appears police thought he was fighting
back. Chesley described being "lifted up" and slammed to the ground with his
chest and face hitting the pavement. He said his arm was pinned underneath
him and he couldn't move it because police had a knee in his back. He said
he was never told that he was under arrest or what he was being arrested
for.

Throughout the trial, Judge Kennedy overruled many of the defense's
objections, but the judge's biases were most apparent in his severe limiting
of the instructions given to the jury. Claims of racial profiling, selective
enforcement of law, insufficient evidence for a Terry stop, all these were
denied. Kirchner claimed he was left with virtually no defense, that he must
be able to argue that the stop was not an authorized act.

Barred from considering the basis of the stop, the jury returned after three
hours of deliberation with a guilty verdict.

*A Broken System*

Before the trial, Judge Kennedy ruled against a motion by Kirchner that the
public could freely come and go from the courtroom. Such a motion should not
be necessary because the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees
the right to a public trial. Kennedy denied the motion and ruled that only
during recess or between witnesses could the public enter the courtroom.
Subsequently, numerous individuals were turned away by bailiffs. The public
was denied access to a public trial. Judge Kennedy repeatedly referred to
Chesley's supporters as "spectators," a term which Dr. Evelyn Underwood,
president of the Ministerial Alliance and associate minister of Free Baptist
Church, took offense at. "I'm tired of being called a spectator," she said.
"The government works for us. This is *my *judicial branch."

Reverend Jerome Chambers, president of the Champaign County chapter of the
NAACP, said, "My disappointment is largely in the travesty of a broken
system that is in dire need of repair."

Those who worry about the impending police state in the wake of the Patriot
Act and "total information awareness," should be more concerned about its
arrival in black neighborhoods. Already given orders to stop, identify, and
enter into a database anybody on the street, police now have a carte blanche
to interrogate us all. Of course, so long as it is not youth in lily-white
suburbs or students in parades of public drunkenness like the U of I's
unofficial St. Patrick's day who receive such treatment, things will remain
the same.

On Wednesday, April 9, at noon, CU Citizens for Peace and Justice is hodling
a protest outside the courthouse. Kirchner and Wyman plan to file a motion
for a new trial which will be heard on May 9, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. in Courtroom
E.
-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
303 W. Locust St.
Urbana, IL 61801
briandolinar at gmail.com
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