Oct
06
2024
African Americans in YS

Sankofa Talk | Keep showing up for John Crawford

Back in April, I attended an anti-racism conference organized by a Greene County group, Sugarcreek Cares. The organization was formed in response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and residents’ desire to address institutional racism in Greene County. This was the third year of holding this conference. One of the conference’s features was the showing of part one of the three-part documentary “Eliminate All the Brutes,” described as “an exploration of European colonialism — from America to Africa — and its impact on society today.”

The film told the story of the horrific, unchecked violence meted out against Indigenous people of this country, Africans, and nonwhite people around the globe to attain profits from free labor, to steal precious lands and perpetuate the myth that whites are supreme beings and others are not only inferior, but less than human. It was riveting to watch, but necessary. It contains the type of information and truths that could change the arc of history if widely known.

I felt a variety of changes in my body while watching. My breathing went shallow as the narrator described the genocide of Native Americans. My breathing actually stopped at times during depictions of the horrors of the enslavement of Africans, particularly the insatiable violence carried out against the natives of the Congo by King Leopold of Belgium, who is said to have murdered and maimed 15 million Congolese. We seldom hear about him in the annals of history. I felt cool beads of sweat form on my forehead and neck. I felt the muscles in my neck and shoulders tighten. I thought, this is why people avoid facing the truth about colonization; if one has a conscience, exposure to such truth can be excruciating, and most prefer to dwell safely in their comfort zone.

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Near the end of the workshop, I announced plans for an upcoming program to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the murder of John Crawford III by Beavercreek police in the Beavercreek Walmart. Immediately after, I felt a strange indescribable emotional shift, accompanied by a stinging feeling around my eyes. I went away in a moment, and I began thinking of the tragic killing of young Crawford, and the aftermath involving the media and the criminal justice system.

A woman who was a panel speaker at the event approached me and began talking about remembering some details of the case and the questionable way it was handled. For those of you who don’t know about the case, John Crawford III was a 22-year-old Black man who entered the Beavercreek Walmart with his girlfriend to buy items for a cookout they planned to attend.

While there, he took a phone call from the mother of his two sons, and as he walked along the aisles, he picked up an unboxed pellet rifle and walked around the store casually while talking on the phone. Video showed later that he did not engage with any customers, that he was minding his own business. Despite this, a young white man called 911 and told the dispatcher that Crawford was “waving a gun around and pointing it at people.” Within minutes, two officers entered the store and one of them shot Crawford twice, killing him. A female customer nearby could be heard screaming just before she collapsed and died from an apparent heart attack. It was later revealed that Crawford was shot in less than a third of a second after an officer shouted at him to drop the weapon.

The woman who approached me to chat about the case said she learned that although a toxicology test was done on Crawford, none was performed on the white lady who died. The media was quick to announce that Crawford had marijuana in his system. As I tried to respond to what she said, suddenly I choked and was myself unable to talk. Tears filled my eyes, and I fought them back desperately. I tried to speak again but it was no use. The woman patted me on the shoulder, and we clumsily found a way to end the conversation. I walked out of the room and gathered myself before I was able to say goodbye to some people I knew and leave with a friend of mine.

I was compelled to get involved with the Crawford case and the quest for justice after watching young members of the Ohio Student Association get involved early on. When they discovered that the FBI had put together a video of the incident synced with the audio of the 911 call, they demanded that the video be released to the public. The attorney general refused to release the video, claiming that it would “taint the jury pool.” From that point on it was evident that justice for the Crawford family would be elusive. The “ain’t no justice for Black people” playbook had been opened. The attorney general did show the video to Crawford’s parents and attorney, all of whom said young Crawford was shot on sight — murdered.

A grand jury was called to consider murder charges against the officers. The jury declined to indict the officers on Sept. 25, 2014. The special prosecutor held a press conference immediately after the decision was announced. He gave the explanation that the officers had recently attended an active shooter training and one had to consider what was in their minds as a result. Friends of mine who watched the press conference agreed that the special prosecutor sounded more like a defense attorney for the cops. There was no consideration given to the fact that Crawford was killed almost instantly, without being given enough time to drop the pellet rifle.

We will never know if the video was shown to the grand jury, but given the decision, it is more than reasonable to conclude that it was not. The release of the video to the public after the press conference was a crisp slap in the face for all concerned. It was all too obvious that the 911 caller told a series of lies, claiming Crawford was threatening and waving and pointing the gun. The special prosecutor referred to the caller as a “guy who was trying to be a good citizen by calling in and reporting what he saw.” This translates into: “Calling 911 or otherwise creating an atmosphere in which a Black man can be murdered, is being a good citizen, even if you have to lie.”

I was invited to show the video to eighth graders on three different occasions. I stopped the video before the actual shots were fired. Each time the students asked the question “Why isn’t he in jail?” referring to the 911 caller. It was an obvious question, and I would like to hear the answer. Well, maybe I would rather not. It would just be more salt in the wounds.

Kudos to all the people who rolled up their sleeves and did some hard work, showing up in hard ways to demand justice for John Crawford III. Many of them were from Yellow Springs. Since the grand jury indictment, there have been vigils held at the Greene County Courthouse. We petitioned the U.S. attorney in charge of the case. We conducted protests and shutdowns at the Beavercreek Walmart. We filed affidavits in the Fairborn Municipal Court demanding charges be brought against the 911 caller.

When the municipal court judge agreed that the caller should be charged with making false alarms and recommended it to the city attorney, who just happened to be the attorney general’s daughter, she recused herself, saying she works closely with the Beavercreek Police Department; thus, it would be improper for her to prosecute the case. She then appointed the same special prosecutor who handled the grand jury case against the officers. Yes, the same one who decided that calling in and creating a situation that led to Crawford being murdered was being a good citizen. We should remember to add this to civics classes taught in schools, I suppose. I know I missed that lesson back in the day. Of course, the prosecutor dismissed the charge.

It’s one thing to see these kinds of situations unfold on TV. It’s another to experience it firsthand. There’s more, though. A group of us who were grinding our teeth over the sleight-of-hand trick with the prosecutor filed grievances with the Ohio Supreme Court Disciplinary division over how the 911 caller’s case was handled. By now you get the pattern though, right? We were stonewalled again.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the attorney general and governor referred the case to the Department of Justice. The bad joke here is that the bar to prove civil rights violations is so high that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar couldn’t hit it with a sky hook. The case was denied as anticipated, and my truckload of reasons to distrust the criminal justice system, especially when it comes to dealing with Black people, is overflowing.

There is so much more to tell, but this is about enough for one sitting. Despite being emotionally mauled at every step toward justice for John Crawford III, we will continue to acknowledge that he was, in fact, a human being who did not deserve to die in the name of sport-hunting of Black men. On Monday, Aug, 5, please join us at the Antioch Foundry Theater at 7 p.m. to commemorate John Crawford III and hopefully get some updates on an ongoing lawsuit. More information can be found on page 2 in this week’s issue of the News.

Thanks to all who have stood in the gap, seeking justice for yet another young Black man caught in the chokehold of the criminal justice system’s life-draining web.

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